


A Debt of Conscience

by Anon_E_Miss



Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Bullying, Canon-Typical Violence, Coercion, Infidelity, M/M, Mech Preg (Transformers), Rape/Non-con Elements, Sexual Coercion, Stalking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-17 19:47:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 28,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29477187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anon_E_Miss/pseuds/Anon_E_Miss
Summary: In the upheaval and chaos of Optimus Prime’s first vorn of leadership a heavily gravid Prowl finds himself in battle against the commander who wants him court-martialed and the mechs who want to take his creation for their own.Dissolutioned with Prime’s orders Jazz finds himself drawn from the shadows into the Praxian’s side. Jazz is not the shadow Prowl fears most. There is another who he fears is watching, waiting for the opportunity to reclaim him and the perfect lifeform he is carrying.
Relationships: Chromedome/Prowl (Transformers), Chromedome/Rewind (Transformers), Jazz/Prowl (Transformers), Mesothulas/Prowl (Transformers)
Comments: 301
Kudos: 154





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For a glossary of terms please see the link below to my Tumblr. 
> 
> https://anon-e-miss.tumblr.com/post/168590155108/world-building
> 
> This fic was inspired by a series of anon ask and random nonsense. Enjoy.

Prowl read the suit he had been served joors earlier for the third time as his spark pulsed wildly in his chassis. They had hired a new lawyer, again. He smacked the datapad against his desk and cursed to himself. That was fine, they were just wasting their credits. He would dispense of this one the same way he had the first two. His spark kept on racing as Prowl stared at the datapad; cursing again, he turned the datapad back on and read the suit. He tapped his digits against his desk. If he hired a lawyer it would only be to sue Chromedome and Rewind with harassment. It would undoubtedly go over poorly with the masses. They were trying to steal the very newling from his forge, but of course, Prowl was the villain. After he had submitted the CNA and code sample he had authorized Hoist to take from his newspark, the paternity suit had been snuffed out before it could even see the courtroom. Chromedome had not sired Prowl’s creation and they both knew it. Chromedome had come to his office that dark-cycle and offered him a startling sum of shanix in exchange for turning custody of the newling over to them at emergence. Prowl had thrown his desk in the slagtard’s face, and he was only sorry he had not knocked off his helm.

He was a mech who had been bought and sold a half dozen times in some manner or another since he had vented his first intake. His creation was not for sale. Throughout Prowl’s entire existence he had fuelled when he had been told to, recharged when he had been told to, lived where he had been told to; just a puppet to command. No more. Optimus Prime was easy enough to foil. Sentinel Prime would not have humoured Prowl’s disobedience for even a bream. Optimus gave Prowl directives and Prowl interpreted them as he saw fit. This attitude gained him no favour with his new commander, but given Prowl had served as Sentinel Prime’s right servo for the last ten and a half vorns in his tenure as Prime, the most violent vorns of his tenure, Prowl did not expect to have his favour. So he did what he thought was best, not what might make him more popular.

It had not been his intention to remain. When he had discovered Mesothulas’ experiment had borne fruit, Prowl had booked a ticket on a shuttle to Velocitron under the auspices of taking his first vacation, ever. He had survived the crash in the Manganese Mountains, and so had Mesothulas’ experiment. Instead of settling on a new world under a new designation, Prowl had spent that vacation purchasing his own habsuite, the first ever that was all his own, and finding a medic of his own choosing. Hoist was an Autobot, but Prowl could forgive him for that. He was not Optimus’ personal physician or Chromedome’s friend.

It had been reasonable, in the beginning, to suspect it had been Chromedome who had ensparked him, and not Mesothulas. When Prowl had discovered his condition, his forge had already been protruding to a significant degree. He had thought in those first mega-cycles, that perhaps when Mesothulas had been rutting into him, determined to put a spark in him, that Chromedome already had. When Prowl had gone to Hoist for his first exam, that hope had been quashed, and perhaps that was not such a terrible thing. Considering Chromedome’s sneer when Prowl had mentioned the possibility prior to the appointment, he had expected Chromedome would have been pleased when Prowl informed him the newspark had been sired by another. Instead, Chromedome had accused him of lying to rob him of his procreator rights.

Prowl had only come to understand why after he had received the dismissal of the first suit, when he had learned through the rumour mill that fed the base that Chromedome and Rewind had received news that they would not be able to create with each other. Prowl had been enraged by this attempt to steal his creation and he remained unable to sympathize at all for their personal tragedy. Over the stellar-cycles that had passed, the same rumour mill had informed Prowl of Chromedome’s great tale of woe. He had been overcharged, he said, as a means to excuse his infidelity. He had been seduced. Chromedome painted Prowl as the aggressor. Rewind was a thrice-damned fool to buy it. The reality had been quite different. Just to start, they had both been sober and it had been Chromedome who had propositioned Prowl, Prowl who had been bent over his desk… It was probably better that the bitlet had been sired by a madmech and not a lying cheat.

Though Prowl had submitted the CNA and the code of his creation to the courts, though Chromedome had been proven stellar-cycles back to not be the progenitor, they were now seeking a second test, one to be taken in front of witnesses. They were demanding to be present when he gave emergence, certain a  _ genuine _ test would prove Chromedome was the progenitor. Though he was angered by their demands, though his spark was pulsing with anxiety and rage, Prowl knew they would come to nothing. His newspark did not share any of Chromedome’s code. Even if the truth did not suit Chromedome or Rewind’s fantasy, it remained the truth. It was also a matter of legal fact. With quick digits, Prowl wrote his response to the suit, attaching Hoist’s report to it and sending it off. There would be no second test.

He had suffered a leak after the first test. Thankfully it had been minor but Prowl was not going to risk his creation for those entitled bastards’ fantasy. He suspected that was part of the reason Jazz was personally surveilling him and not another one of his minions. It would not be the only reason, naturally. Optimus Prime had been slowly but surely narrowing Prowl’s permissions and his oversights. He had been an enforcer long enough to know when he was being investigated. The Prime had opened an investigation on him the very moment he had taken on the mantle, before Sentinel’s frame had even been cold. Prowl scowled at the thought as he rested a servo over his bulging forge. Unfortunately, he could not claim to have nothing to hide.

Prowl had everything to hide. The Prime himself had asked Prowl to identify the progenitor of his creation after the second suit, stepping into a custody battle that was already dead in the Rust Sea. In response, Prowl had informed his commander that it was none of his business. Why would Optimus Prime require Prowl to present him with some bot to declare they had fragged him to settle the matter when the matter was already settled? Chromedome’s code and CNA were not a match for the mechling Prowl carried. This was an irrefutable fact. That should have been enough to settle any debate and if it was not, that was not Prowl’s problem. Prime had not been pleased with Prowl’s response but he had no intrinsic right to the designation of the mech who had sired Prowl’s creation. Thank Primus for that.

Sentinel Prime would not have settled for being told "none of your fragging business". He would have taken the designation straight from Prowl’s processor. But then, he likely would have known. Prowl had been his liaison with Mesothulas. In the end, he would probably have even approved of Mesothulas’ mission to create the perfect life form. He would have played along with Mesothulas while already staking a mental claim on his property's progeny. He would have given Prowl to Mesothulas to... care for during his gestational vorn to ensure the best results. Mesothulas would not have needed to blackmail Prowl into allowing the kindling had Sentinel Prime still been alive.  _ That _ Prime would have just demanded Prowl present himself to the madmech’s lab to be ensparked.

Unfortunately for Prowl, though Sentinel was rusting in the Pit, Mesothulas was in the wind. Prowl’s best hope for escaping the lunatic for good had been the shuttle. Now he could only hope to hide within Iacon’s high walls and hope someone did him the service of blowing Mesothulas’ helm off wherever he was hiding. He could be anywhere. Knowing how well Mesothulas knew the base, Prowl had purchased his habsuite several districts over, in the centre of the sprawling city-state. There were dozens of escapes, dozens of routes to and from the base, the clinic, and anywhere else Prowl needed to go. Though he was more limited now that his t-cog had officially gone offline, Iacon had an excellent public transportation system. Prowl had every route that passed even remotely near to his habsuite memorized. It was not easy to follow him.

Still, he knew someone was, someone had been for over sixty stellar-cycles. Though Prowl had not seen Jazz, he had no doubt that it was the Prime’s left servo who had taken the job in the last few quartexes. Just as he had no doubt the saboteur’s decision to do the job himself was personal. Prowl knew Jazz was sitting in the office just next to his and he knew Jazz would only leave once he had. Considering how personally affronted Prowl was by these suits and the investigation that showed no sign of ending, he was not above being petty. He could not take his anger out on Rewind or Chromedome, which was categorically unfair, but he could take it out on Jazz. Though his duty shift was long over, Prowl remained at his desk. There were no imminent battles to prepare for. In any case, Optimus Prime had redirected much of that work to generals he preferred. Prowl still examined their strategies and tore them to shreds as it suited him. Optimus Prime may not have liked it, but Prowl got results, results he desperately needed. So until he was given evidence of any great wrongdoing on Prowl’s part, Prowl remained, officially, his second in command.

Prowl glared at the wall that separated his office from that of his nemesis. If anyone could discover that great wrongdoing, it would be Jazz. There was no evidence; had there been Prowl would have been long gone, but it made him horrifically tense knowing that mech was watching him. It felt like he could never quite catch his ventilations. Jazz was a master at his art. It was never a positive thing to come under his purview. Prowl had everything to hide but he had hidden it well. As his creation stretched in Prowl’s already cramped forge, he set his servo over the warm, rounded protoform and took a deep intake and released a slow vent. He had hidden it well. Jazz was a master of his art, but so was Prowl a master of his.

The officers’ ball was underway. Jazz was fond of music, dancing and drinking. Though Prowl never attended these things, he knew Jazz did. If not for his current post, he was certain Jazz would be there, but he knew that Jazz was sitting on the other side of the wall from him. It would be over in... two joors. In which case, Prowl just needed to find two more joors of work to keep him occupied. He shifted in his chair. There was a meeting in the light-cycle, one he had scheduled for the first duty block, to address ongoing issues with discipline. Every officer would be in attendance. They would probably all still be overcharged. Prowl grimaced. His frame ached after so many joors at his desk and he stretched indulgently leaned back. Awkwardly, he brought his peds up to his desk. Even though he had been sitting all ‘cycle they felt both prickly and numb as if his armour was too tight, but Hoist had loosened it at his last appointment; Prowl stretched again, carefully rotating each tight joint. Officially, he was off the clock. Maybe what he needed to do was take a nap.

Prowl was bleary opticked when he onlined exactly two joors later when his chronometer went off. He grimaced and stretched. His back and doorwings were throbbing. How so many Autobots could manage this on a regular basis baffled him. When he stretched, each of his spinal struts cracked. No, he was definitely not going to do that again. Both stiff and sore, and tired despite the nap, Prowl pushed himself to his peds. The officers’ ball had just ended, Jazz’s dark-cycle was ruined, and so for the time being, Prowl’s pettiness had been sated. As he walked to the metro, Prowl kept his doorwings spread wide and their sensitivity high. He never saw Jazz, though he was certain he was being followed. The train car he boarded was empty and it remained that way when he got to his stop.

No one followed him to his habsuite, or no one he saw. Prowl could not explain what it was but there was a prickle at the very edges of his doorwings, here and there. Another might have brushed it off as a trick of the breeze, but Prowl had no doubt Jazz was watching him from just beyond the range of his sensory grid. If not Jazz, someone... it would be best if it was Jazz. No one followed him into the building or on to the elevator. There was not so much as a fleeting flash of white and black. Jazz was too good at his function to be spotted, even by one with Prowl’s training. The long joors he had worked these last three mega-cycles were catching up with him and Prowl staggered down the hall and into his habsuite. Without even turning on a single light, he made his way to his berthroom and collapsed onto his berth without even pulling back the blankets. Prowl was in recharge a nanoklik later.

***

There were some places he could not go. Prime had not authorized a search of Prowl’s private habsuite. Had he lived on base, such a search probably would have been authorized long ago. After he had come back from the Manganese Mountains, after that horrific crash, Prowl had relocated from his old quarters on base to this habsuite. So far as Jazz knew, he had never had a single guest. There were, however, a number of windows that allowed Jazz glimpses inside. He had never seen Prowl cook, but there was a row of aromatic crystals on the sill of his kitchen window. Jazz had never seen him watch it, but there was a holo-emitter set into a solid-looking entertainment unit flanked by two shelves dotted with datapads and crystals, both carved and raw. A blanket was haphazardly draped over the plush couch. It looked comfortable, homey, nothing like the mech’s barren office. The berthroom was dark but Jazz knew it had a chest for storage, a geometric shelf with more crystals and datapads displayed and a large berth with a thick pad. Usually, Prowl crawled under the heavy blankets when he finally went off duty. This dark-cycle he just collapsed on top of them. The Praxian was curled up on top of the blankets, legs pulled up, one arm tightly folded over the broad curve of his forge. His optics had powered off before his helm even hit the pillow.

Jazz frowned as he watched through the mech’s berthroom window. The only thing these stellar-cycles of surveillance had given him was confirmation the mech could work an orn straight without rest before he came close to collapse. Despite the constant surveillance, neither he nor the operatives who had been monitoring the SIC beforehand had seen him attend clandestine meetings, and not because Prowl had ever managed to lose his tail. There was no doubt in Jazz’s processor that Prowl knew he was being monitored. His doorwings moved in careful, rolling sweeps and he often had to climb or jump to stay beyond the outermost range of the Praxian’s doorwings. Still, Prowl had never taken him or his agents on wild drives or chases. He went around his business and his life, so far as Jazz could see, without any change.

At some point, Jazz thought they were going to need to throw up their servos and admit defeat. Prowl may have been the single most loathed and distrusted member of the old guard, but if he had been personally involved in Sentinel’s war crimes and corruption, he had buried those secrets so deep there was nothing left to find. That was the problem. The lack of evidence did not mean a lack of guilt. It did not clear Prowl’s designation and so it did nothing to assuage Prime’s, or anyone else’s suspicions. But there was only so long Jazz could pour so many mechjoors into this scrap. He had taken a swing at it as a favour to Blaster, starting seven quartexes ago, killing two cyber-birds with one stone. On that front, Jazz supposed he had found more but still nothing tangible. Prowl was working the same insane joors he had prior to kindling. He had no respect for the new limits of his frame. But he managed. He managed better than Jazz.

Slowly, Jazz scaled down the building and made his way back to the road. He transformed and drove home. There was an officers meeting in five joors. Prowl had scheduled it himself. Jazz doubted very much that the Praxian had just forgotten about the meeting. In the last three orns each of the early light-cycle meetings had been preceded by a gruellingly late dark-cycle. The pattern had started when Jazz had taken over surveillance. None of his subordinates attended the officers’ meetings. There was a clear pattern forming here, Jazz would have been a fool not to see it, and Jazz was no fool. Prowl was doing this on purpose.

The ordeal that was surveilling Prowl might have been less onerous if the mech at least looked like the quartexes of only fleeting recharge had some effect on Prowl, but despite his delicate condition, Prowl showed not even the slightest sign of exhaustion as Jazz ducked into the meeting two kliks late. Carrying was supposed to be exhausting at the best of times but it did not seem to affect Prowl at all. There was nothing different about him. As he went over the business that had called for the meeting, he did not cup his bulging protoform or brace his servos on his back to try and redistribute his weight in some way. Prowl did not acknowledge his condition at all as he spoke, something Jazz knew was being weighed against him by everybot observing. Considering at least three-quarters of those present were operating on minimal recharge and were probably brutally hungover if not still overcharged, Prowl could count on the fact that he did not have a single friend in this room.

Everyone knew about the drama surrounding the SIC and Chromedome and Rewind. Blaster, sitting in the back of the room, was the procreator of the Cassetticon and definitely had strong opinions. Just about everybot on either side of the war favoured Chromedome and Rewind, except the court records were clear. Chromedome was not the progenitor and thus had no claim to the newling in Prowl’s forge. Though Jazz knew Chromedome had filed a new suit, he knew it would come to nothing. Sad as it was that he and Rewind had been diagnosed with infertility, they had no claim to Prowl’s creation. Hoist was a good medic. He would not make a mistake in reading the code or CNA and he would not miscalculate the estimated emergence date by twenty mega-cycle. It sucked slag for Chromedome and Rewind, but the evidence was as black and white as the very Praxian they had gone to war against. Jazz listened as the SIC droned on. It could have been his imagination, but Jazz thought Prowl might have even been dryer than normal, like he was torturing Jazz, like he was trying to put him into recharge. Prowl looked right at him and adjusted his pitch, flattening his monotone just a little bit more. Jazz fought to keep his optics online. Spiteful aft.

“Fragger is doin’ it on purpose,” Jazz growled.

With a dramatic vent, he collapsed in his chair upon arriving in his office, the office he had been stuck in until ungodly o’clock in the light-cycle because Prowl was a miserable slagtard. Mirage pushed a cube of pressed energon across Jazz’s desk and the saboteur downed it in one gulp. He had not even managed to grab a cube when he had run onto base, late because Jazz needed some fragging recharge. Trailbreaker had intercepted him with a packet from tactics. No doubt that was also on purpose. Prowl was straight-up evil.

“Without a doubt,” Mirage agreed. “Considering he is playing it perfectly by the book, you are stuck, my friend.”

“He’s a spiteful, petty aft,” Jazz grumbled, taking another cube of pressed energon from Mirage, sipping this one more slowly. “It’s always before the meetings, always on the dark-cycle of a party. It ain’t a coincidence, the fragger is torturing me. Me personally. He didn’t pull this slag on you.”

“No, he didn’t,” Mirage agreed. “But making me work through a party wouldn’t be torture, that would have been a mercy. Prowl made certain to leave work with plenty of time for me to attend, giving me no excuse to escape “team-building” scrap. He knows us better than we ever realized.”

“Slagtard,” Jazz grumbled. “I give my report to Prime end o’ the quartex. ‘M gonna suggest we wrap this scrap up. Don’t matter if Prowl was elbow deep in Sentinel’s waste, there’s no evidence, not a scrap of it, nothin’ to give Prime grounds to court-martial him.”

“I’ll be glad when the witch hunt is over,” Hound declared, both Mirage and Jazz looked at him. Hound leaned back in his chair. “Prowl has been presumed guilty without evidence and without a trial. If Optimus was just a little bit more like Sentinel, Prowl would have been taken out to the wall and shot stellar-cycles ago.”

“Scrap,” Jazz cursed. He ran his servo over his face. “Optimus isn’t Sentinel.”

“No,” Hound agreed. “That doesn’t mean he doesn’t sometimes act like him. At least where Prowl is concerned.”

“Sentinel ripped Cybertron apart,” Jazz said. “His crimes are the fuel that let the Cons take hold in the east. We got a responsibility to turn up every mechanism involved ‘n bring ’em to justice to show everyone, especially the Neutrals, that we’re forged differently.”

“We’ve dug to the core of Cybertron and found nothing,” Hound replied. “The only thing we’ve found on Prowl were his purchase records.”

“Y’re right,” Jazz said. The remainder of the documents he had handled in the vault made his fuel tank clench. “The thing is, we ain’t found anythin’ that clears ‘m either. OP ain’t gonna be satisfied wit nothin’.”

“I know,” Hound said. “That’s why I’m calling it a witch hunt. We aren’t investigating Prowl because we’ve received intel that suggests he’s dirty. We’re investigating him because Optimus is desperate to find an excuse to court-martial him. What’s next? After you tell him, again, that there is nothing? Is he going to tell you to find  _ something _ ? Is he going to tell you to create something to find? That’s what Chromedome and Rewind want you to do too, isn’t it? Plant something so they can steal Prowl’s creation?”

“OP wouldn’t go that far,” Jazz argued. He did not respond to Hound’s accusation towards Chromedome and Rewind, he was spot on. Jazz knew it. He would not defend it, just as he would not do what they wanted. Even if he would go so low, Hoist would never stand for it.

“If he hates Prowl enough, he will,” Hound replied. “And I won’t stick around to see how low he can go.”

It was a sombre thought and one that followed Jazz throughout the mega-cycle. He stayed in his office as the joor grew late. Prowl was working on something on the other side of the wall. The nap Jazz had taken during his mid-cycle break was the only reason he was not passed out at his desk. Prowl had not taken one; Jazz knew he had been stuck in tactics past the end of his duty shift. What exactly had gone wrong, Jazz did not know and might never. All he knew was Prowl had not left his department until after Countdown had stalked off in a huff. Trailbreaker and the other tacticians on duty had left shortly after. Only after they had all gone had Prowl returned to his office where he had been holed up for the last four joors.

Jazz looked back over the security footage he had saved and watched Prowl walk down the empty hall, joors ago. He must have thought no one had been watching. His doorwings had drooped low as he had slowly walked to his office. Had that been a waddle or a stagger? Frowning, Jazz rewound the footage and watched again. The screen froze, capturing Prowl as he had run a servo over his forge, leaning against his door. For the first time since Jazz had ever known him, he saw Prowl flag under strain. Despite knowing that Prowl was to blame for his own exhaustion, Jazz did not celebrate the mech’s weakness. He opened his comm and dialled Ratchet.

“What have you done?” Ratchet asked. It was rare he worked the dark-cycle shift these mega-cycles, but Fixit had caught a virus and was resting in his habsuite. Any other medic could have been assigned the extra rotation, but the CMO had taken it on himself. Jazz grinned, though Ratchet could not see his expression.

“Nothin’,” he said. “Just wonderin’ what sorta work joors ya’d expect an ori-to-be to work at about sixty-three stellar-cycle along?”

“Why?”

“‘Cause ‘m pretty sure Prowl’s workin’ his third fourteen joor mega-cycle this orn. ‘N I happen to know he only got home at 02:40 last dark-cycle...”

“Do you?” Ratchet asked. “Do I want to know why you know?”

“‘I been on the same joors,” Jazz replied.

“I was wondering why you didn’t turn up last dark-cycle,” Ratchet said. “It’s not like you to miss a party and you’ve missed the last four.”

“Prowl walked out at exactly 02:02. Just like the last three parties. Mech’s a petty aft.”

“If I knew you were following me, I would do the exact same thing.”

Ratchet would do worse. Prowl had never once challenged the operatives monitoring him; he had carried on with his life, largely as if they did not exist. The medic would not be so patient if he found himself with a shadow. No, he would unleash his famous temper on the unlucky slagtard before stalking off to find Optimus to give him a piece of his processor. Considering the freedom with which Prowl challenged Prime, and every other officer, when it came to discipline, administration and tactics, it was interesting that he had not challenged Jazz or his subordinates, instead of relying on petty little frag yous to make his opinion known. Why? Why not castigate Prime as the witch hunt, as Hound had called it, hit sixty stellar-cycles? Why was he holding his glossa here, when he never otherwise did? Jazz was distracted by this thought when the camera feed revealed Prowl stepping out of his office. He watched the Praxian hike up his doorwings, then watched him stumble and strike hard against Jazz’s door. It was not locked so opened automatically, and Prowl fell through the doorway.

“Woah!”

Jazz shouted as Prowl tried to catch his balance and failed. He lunged over his desk and caught the Praxian before he hit the ground. Jazz did not immediately release his grip on Prowl as they sat in a heap on his office floor. His own spark was pulsing in his audial horns as he felt Prowl shudder once, his arms wrapped tightly around his midsection. Jazz could feel Prowl’s spark racing through his plating. Only when Jazz’s had gotten control over his spark rate and his ventilations did he loosen his hold at all and gently pat Prowl’s arm. Even when he examined Prowl for damage, Jazz never actually let go of the mech. Prowl tensed as Jazz’s digits probed his shoulder, searching for a dent but he did not struggle or even pull away. As Jazz searched for damage, Prowl’s quick ventilations slowly smoothed out.

“Ya a’ight?” Jazz asked, finding no damage.

“I am fine,” Prowl replied.

“Lemme help ya up,” Jazz said. Prowl nodded. When he guided Prowl up to his peds, the Praxian stood steady. Jazz kept an arm around him anyways. “Better get ya to Ratchet.”

“I do not need your help,” Prowl hissed and glared at him with naked anger.

“Better to be safe,” Jazz replied. “Don’t want ya fallin’ again.”

Prowl looked away from him and his engine revved. It was probably meant to sound menacing but to Jazz it sounded like an angry cyber-kitten, plating all puffed up, not that he was going to tell Prowl that. Unhappy with Jazz assistance as he so clearly was, Prowl still did not struggle when Jazz guided him down the hall. He was holding his midsection and ventilating still a little heavier than Jazz thought Ratchet would like. The fall had scared him. Jazz sympathized. They did not speak a glyph as they made their way to Ratchet’s domain but that did not mean Jazz did not have an idea of what Prowl was feeling or thinking. Standing next to the other mech as they rode the elevator down, Jazz could feel his tension growing and growing. If he had not thought it would anger Prowl more, Jazz would have offered some glyph of comfort, but he knew full well Prowl was only tolerating his presence on sufferance. They stepped off the elevator, and as they did, Prowl’s left ped suddenly dragged and he tripped. Jazz dipped under him as he did, and lifted Prowl off the ground before he could even flail. Prowl let out a sound a little like a squeak and Jazz walked on. Scrap, he was heavy, but not as bad as Trailbreaker by far.

“Put me down,” Prowl ordered, pitch higher than he usually used. His spark was just racing.

“Not happenin’,” Jazz said. “Better safe.”

They were met by Ratchet’s glare when the medbay doors opened. The medic had not been expecting Jazz to begin with, and he certainly had not been expecting his recalcitrant patient to arrive to his summons being carried in someone’s arms. His glare did not let up as Jazz carried Prowl to the nearest medberth, explaining that Prowl had fallen twice. Prowl met Ratchet’s glare with one just as fierce as he countered that he had fallen once, he had only stumbled the second time. His doorwings were high on his back and spread out wide as his plating flared. Jazz wondered if he realized how telling the demonstration was. He did not read the posture as simply angry, but scared. Though he took a step back as the medic swooped in with his scanners, Jazz did not leave. He felt horribly guilty.

“Lay down,” Ratchet ordered. Prowl refused.

“You are not my medic.”

“I am CMO and I’m about to decide if you’re fit for duty, I suggest you cooperate, Prowl,” Ratchet countered. Prowl glowered but obeyed. Ratchet glared down at him as he continued his scans. “That’s better. You should not even have been on base to get my summons.”

“You had no need to summon me,” Prowl countered.

“Someone reports to me an Autobot is demonstrating a careless disregard for their own health and safety, you better fragging believe I have need to summon them,” Ratchet snapped back. “You can go, Jazz.”

Knowing a dismissal when he heard one, Jazz turned and left. He should have gone home. Nothing had been gained following him at any point in the last sixty stellar-cycles and nothing would be lost in letting Prowl off for the rest of the dark-cycle. But instead of going home, Jazz went back to his office. The security field was still up on his screen. Jazz shook his helm. When Prowl had fallen, Jazz had not thought to terminate the feed. At least his door had locked automatically when he had left his office. That was a little bit of his own programming. He sat down in his chair with a vent less theatrical than the one he had let out when Mirage and Hound had been sitting with him. Jazz scrolled through the thousands of cameras that covered the base and stopped at the one monitoring the medbay. There was no Prowl and no Ratchet. They must have gone into one of the treatment rooms. He left that camera up as he pulled out a new report from one of his operatives in the field and sat back to see what, if anything, Treadbolt had found for him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now Beta'd by FairyGothMama.
> 
> Thank you 🖤💜
> 
> Fic was going to update on Mondays but I changed my mind. For now it will be Fridays until I change my mind again.

At Ratchet’s mercy, Prowl lay on his back and glared at the ceiling. The medic ran his scanners over his frame and though he hardly felt them, he still found the scans violating. This was not his medic, but he had to submit to his will or risk being relieved of his duties at best or sanctioned for insubordination at worst. Prowl hated to be reminded of his helplessness. Optimus Prime would jump at any opportunity to replace him; even if Prowl would surely be cleared to return to his duties at a later date, there was no guarantee he would be permitted to return. In fact, Prowl thought it would be likely that his application would be summarily denied. As the violating scans delved deep within him, Prowl hugged his forge a little tighter. It could have been his imagination, but as the scans ran deep, Prowl felt his newling shift, he  _ felt _ him tense through the bond between their sparks. He stroked his forge, slow and tentative, to soothe his creation and himself.

“Your spark rate is way too high for my liking,” Ratchet declared. “I’m going to take you to an exam room and hook you up to a monitor for the next joor to see if it won’t come down.”

It was not a request. At the same time, Prowl was not a fool. This was not his medic and Prowl was not predisposed to this mech at all, but he knew a high spark rate on his part was a danger to his newling and so he did not put up even a token resistance. He could have walked easily, but Ratchet lifted him off the medberth and for the second time in the dark-cycle, Prowl found himself being carried. Would a stretcher not have sufficed? Admittedly, Prowl was tired and that might have explained why he did not think of an argument to allow himself to walk until he was carefully lowered to a new medberth less than a klik later. When he scowled, it was at himself.

“Open this,” Ratchet ordered, tapping the armour of Prowl’s chassis. “You can keep your spark chamber closed.”

Prowl obeyed. Ratchet attached sensors to the crystals of Prowl’s sealed spark chamber and still more around his forge and down his legs. He had made note of Prowl’s issue with his electrical impulses, as Hoist had during his last appointment. It had been worse this mega-cycle, with his leg seizing twice in a bream. Perhaps it had something to do with his lack of recharge, Prowl could not deny he was woefully lacking on that front. Hoist had cautioned him to rest as he was able, but Prowl could only recharge when he was absolutely exhausted. His processor would not shut down until he ran out of battery. There was too much going on keeping it engaged to allow Prowl to cycle peaceably down into recharge. His optics flashed back online when a blanket was pulled over him. Ratchet glowered down at him.

“Take a nap,” he ordered. “You need it.”

Though he might have been spiteful enough to deny the medic, Prowl was past mere exhaustion at this point and he could only will his optics to remain online for a few kliks. Bit by bit they dimmed and his thoughts gradually slowed to a crawl. The blanket was soft and the weight of it was soporific. With his forge dotted with those onerous nodes, Prowl had to slowly feel around before he found the base of his curved protoform was free; he rested his servo there and drifted down into recharge. 

Sometime later, Prowl woke and found the room was dark. He checked his chronometer and found it was just a joor from sunrise. When he tilted his helm, Prowl saw the monitor recording his spark rate. Not only his, but his newling’s as well. Prowl watched the monitor, fixated on his newling steady spark rate. As he watched it, Prowl’s optics grew dim again and before a bream was out, he had drifted back down into recharge.

The second time Prowl woke, the room was lightly lit, and he was not alone. Ratchet was at his berthside, observing the monitor. He made an irritated sound and looked down at Prowl’s face. Prowl glared right back at him. It was 09:00, well past the point Prowl would normally online, even on a mega-cycle off, and two joors after he was supposed to have reported for his duty shift. Given he was in the medic’s custody, Prowl hoped Ratchet had removed him from the roster for the mega-cycle, lest Optimus Prime take issue with him being absent without leave. Ratchet turned his attention to a monitor Prowl could not see from his position leaving his unwilling patient to stare up at the ceiling. Within Prowl, his creation stretched and Prowl tapped his digits against his forge. He felt absolutely massive already, his forge already protruding nearly as far as his prominent bumper. Prowl wondered how large he might get by the end. All he knew was he was well past the point of seeing his peds anymore.

“Are you up for fuel?” Ratchet asked.

“Yes,” Prowl said. The horrific nausea all the carrying books had warned of had never hit Prowl. Instead, he was always hungry. “Please.”

“Let’s get you sitting up,” Ratchet declared and he utilized controls to arrange the berth in a more upright position. “I’ll be back. Hoist will be on duty in a joor. Once he is, we’re all going to talk.”

“Have I been relieved of duty?” Prowl asked.

“You are on medical leave for an orn,” Ratchet replied. “Possibly a quartex, depending on how your exams go this light-cycle. When and if I authorize you to return, your duties will be restricted, specifically the joors you are working, because you clearly have no common sense.”

Prowl scowled when the door closed behind the medic, more at himself than anyone else. He had exceeded the limits of his frame and he knew it, but Prowl did not know how to function without exceeding or at least pushing these limits. With MTO’s there was no good enough, you always had to do more, do better. Always. An orn of leave, what was Prowl to do? Stare at the ceiling, hoping to recharge as his battle computer explored thousands of scenarios in which Chromedome and Rewind could continue their mission to steal his newling. These scenarios would be the memory purges that woke him from recharge when he finally did fall offline. Prowl regularly woke up, spark surging, plating clammy with condensation, clutching his forge, reminding himself his creation remained where he belonged. After an orn of memory purges, Prowl doubted his spark rate was going to be to Ratchet’s satisfaction.

“What are you thinking about that has your spark pulse jumping that quickly?” Ratchet asked when he returned to the room and looked up at the monitor.

“What do you think?” Prowl countered, feeling judged and surly for it. Ratchet set the tray down on a table that extended out from the medberth and pushed it so it swung over Prowl’s lap. He wished the medic would leave but he pulled up the stool set next to the monitors and rolled over the berth.

“I think your stress levels are a threat to your creation,” Ratchet said. The very last thing Prowl wanted to do was cry but the tears erupted from his optics anyways. How dare Ratchet blame him for this? Forgetting the nodes attached to his plating, Prowl hugged his midsection.

“I have a right to be stressed,” he snapped. “Mechanisms are trying to steal my creation before he can even emerge and  _ Jazz _ has lent them his services. I have every reason to be stressed. The  _ entire _ army believes  _ they _ are entitled to  _ my _ creation. Regardless of the fact Hoist’s test proved conclusively that Chromedome was not involved in the conception,  _ everyone _ continues to humour them.”

“Deep intake, Prowl,” Ratchet said. Prowl did the opposite. He froze, holding his ventilations in an odd reflex tied to his battle computer, and he stared at the medic. “Deep intake. Now.”

“I have every reason and right to be stressed,” Prowl said quietly, wheezing a little, as he snapped out of it. He took the deep intakes he had been commanded to take. His spark rate slowed, but only so far. Feeling bitter, he wiped the tears from his optics and looked away from the medic.

“I don’t disagree,” Ratchet said. Warily, Prowl slowly turned to look at him.

“What?”

“I don’t disagree,” the medic repeated. “You have good reasons to be stressed.”

“Oh.”

“Oh?”

“I did not think you would actually agree with me,” Prowl replied. He wiped his optics again but no longer felt petulant as he did it.

“How many suits have they filed, two?” Ratchet asked.

“Three,” Prowl corrected him. “They filed a new one other mega-cycle. They are demanding I subject myself to another paternity test, from a new medic, with witnesses, and they demand to be present when I give emergence when the results prove Chromedome is, in fact, the progenitor. I will not. I suffered a leak the first time. It took an orn before it fully stopped. I am not risking my creation for their fantasy. The last time Chromedome and I interfaced was over eighty-three stellar-cycles ago. I am only sixty-three stellar-cycles into my gestational vorn. He cannot be the progenitor. Based on his testimony, not only my own, there was no opportunity. In any case, the CNA and code show he is not. He did not so much as contribute. He knows he has not. I do not know why he persists with this madness. He knows he is not the progenitor, that is why he offered me twenty-three thousand shanix to buy my creation.”

“For Primus sake,” Ratchet sighed. Prowl’s entire frame shuddered as he cried, angrily.

“My creation is not for sale!”

“Of course not,” Ratchet said.

“I am not an incubator.”

“That’s right, you’re not,” Ratchet soothed. Prowl was mollified and his plating smoothed out. He reached for the pressed energon Ratchet had brought him and lifted the lid. It was an inky black. Surprised, he cocked his helm at the medic. “I know how you like it, Prowl.”

“I did not think you approved,” he replied. Prowl took a sip and vented softly. His optics dimmed as he drank the concentrated fuel. The garbled static that came with recharge was purged from his battle computer and he felt his thought processes smooth out.

“Interns drink similar scrap,” Ratchet explained. “It isn’t fuel anyone should be living on but I know you aren’t. You’ve mostly been taking care of yourself. This all-dark-cycle scrap you’ve been pulling is new.”

“If I am going to be watched, I am going to make them miserable,” Prowl replied, undeniably petulant.

“Making Jazz miss the parties,” Ratchet said. “And scheduling mandatory meetings as early as you can get away with.”

“Mirage prefers to avoid social functions,” Prowl explained. “I made sure to be home in plenty of time for him to attend as expected. Hound loathes mindless drives through the city.”

“You successfully made Jazz miserable but you just about scrapped yourself,” Ratchet scolded him. “When did the misfires in your electrical system start?”

“Six quartexes ago,” Prowl replied. “Hoist instructed me to modify my duties. I am not to stand for more than a half joor at a time and only a few time a mega-cycle.”

“He didn’t raise concerns about your recharge?”

“It was not an issue at my last appointment,” Prowl replied.

“Have the misfires worsened?” Ratchet asked.

“I suppose,” Prowl confessed. “My peds feel both prickly and numb simultaneously most of the time for the last few mega-cycles.”

“What part of your peds?”

“Everything, but my treads are the worst.”

“Right side? Left side?”

“Either, never at the same time.”

“You’re carrying a large bitlet for someone of your frame size,” Ratchet said. “You may have some pinched wires. Finish your breakfast and I’ll see if I can’t find something.”

Prowl did as he was told. He was losing his wariness of the medic. Though he had thought the medic was friends, or at least friendly with Chromedome and Rewind, he did not appear to be on their side by default. Though it had seemed unlikely to him in the beginning, Ratchet actually appeared on his side. It was more of a relief than Prowl could hope to describe with any justice. He ate the fuels Ratchet had brought him and then allowed the medic a more servos-on exam. Hoist had looked for a pinched wire but had not found one. Their search methods were different, however. Ratchet felt along Prowl’s protoform, focusing around armour plates. The touch might have felt invasive but the manner in which Ratchet did it, talking to Prowl, instructing him to shift or turn as he hunted, made the digits digging under his armour feel almost benign.

“Hmm,” Ratchet hummed. “Let’s try loosening your armour a little...”

He had not thought that his armour was tight but after Ratchet adjusted his bumper, Prowl felt like he was ventilating more easily; not that he had struggled so often. By the time Hoist arrived, Prowl was more comfortable than he had been in a few quartexes. His armour no longer restrained his protoform at all, in any location. It was more comfortable but the results were a little ridiculous. His bumper had always been unnecessarily large, it had gained noticeable size with the new arrangement of his armour and suddenly, he had an aft, a substantial one. Though his forge had not changed in size the effect of the redistribution was that he looked like a bloated tank, rather than a pursuit vehicle.

“How are our patients?” Hoist asked when he arrived. “That time, Ratchet?”

“If he keeps carrying high, it’s going to be interesting,” Ratchet replied. “I’m hoping taking some of the pressure off will reduce those misfires... His coolant lines are swollen, so are his energon lines.”

“How are you feeling Prowl?” Hoist asked.

“Fine,” Prowl replied with his default. Hoist shook his helm.

“How are you really feeling?” Hoist asked. “You spent the dark-cycle in the medbay. I know Ratchet wouldn’t have admitted you for no reason.”

“I pushed myself too far spiteing Jazz,” Prowl confessed. Hoist chuckled.

“I can relate, but no more of that. We want you and the bitlet to be healthy.”

“His spark rate has been spiking,” Ratchet said. “Stress, I have no doubt. I have concerns it could be a factor in his misfires. Given the prickly sensation he’s feeling in his extremities and the swelling of his coolant and energon lines, I have concerns.”

“You’re thinking he’s developed chromeclampsia?” Hoist asked.

“I was hoping it was only in development but I don’t think we’re that lucky,” Ratchet said. “I was going to put Prowl on leave for an orn to address his stress levels but given the additional symptoms, I think we need to look at a quartex on modified berth rest and discuss medications. I don’t imagine you disagree.”

“Not in the least,” Hoist agreed. He patted Prowl’s knee. A whole quartex. It sounded miserable, but Prowl had read every carrying book he could find. He knew that chromeclampsia was one of the most dangerous complications in carrying. The diagnosis scared him. On the monitor, his spark rate jumped and Hoist patted his knee again. “However, I don’t think work is the primary source of his stress.”

“Did you receive a suit as well?” Prowl asked. He was not happy about the prospect of seeing his work joors reduced so dramatically. Prowl feared being pushed out of his function, but his bitlet’s health mattered more than anything in this world.

“I did,” Hoist replied. “And I filed a countersuit for libel as well.”

“Oh,” Prowl started.

“Since I’m being accused of medical malpractice, I’m inclined to shove my ped up a pair of afts,” Hoist said. “But I would rather not dirty my ped myself; my attorney will do it for me.”

“It might be time for you to file a complaint yourself, Prowl,” Ratchet suggested and Prowl was genuinely surprised. “You’re being harassed with nuisance lawsuits and it’s directly affecting your health.”

“I am worried it will only inflame the situation,” Prowl said.

“It might,” Ratchet agreed. “But it won’t be your glyph against theirs. The sample remains on file, I’ll perform my own test and, I’m sure, confirm Hoist’s results. I can already confirm that you are sixty-three stellar-cycles along. Two things concern me. Your size and chromeclampsia. At this stage, your newling is only slightly smaller than the average full-term Praxian newling. With twenty stellar-cycles left in your gestational vorn, I have concerns your frame won’t be able to expel the newling naturally. At the same time, chromeclampsia often leads to underdevelopment in newsparks and early emergence. Your newling is large but he has substantial development left to do.”

“I understand,” Prowl said. He stroked his forge and shuddered once, then sighed. “The mech who sired him was twice my size.”

“We’ll have to monitor the development of your forge closely,” Ratchet said. “Your protoform can only expand so far. He may need to be extracted early if you show signs of rupturing. If your chromeclampsia worsens we may need to extract him early to save your life. We have incubators in place should he need extra support at emergence. Provided the chromeclampsia doesn’t start complicating his development, you can expect to expand by up to 100% more than you presently are.”

“Really?” Prowl gaped and looked down at himself. He was already huge.

“The fourth quarter is when sentio metallico is laid over the inner workings of the protoform. That adds considerable bulk and mass to your bitlet and requires more space for your internal factory to work. Your forge will expand accordingly.”

“I am not going to be able to stand,” Prowl muttered.

“The use of total berthrest has fallen out of fashion,” Hoist said. “Before the end of your carrying, you will be on restrictions, if not partial berthrest. If we can’t manage your chromeclampsia with at-home treatment, you may be hospitalized until the end of your term.”

“I see,” Prowl said. “How soon?”

“Hopefully not for another ten stellar-cycles or so,” Hoist said. “Getting lots of rest and listening to your frame is your best hope of reducing your time with restrictions.”

“I understand,” Prowl said. The prospect of ten stellar-cycles, not even ten quartexes but stellar-cycles, stuck in a berth was horrifying. His digits traced the large swell under his bumper and wondered, not for the first time, if Mesothulas’ _ perfect _ creation was going to rip him apart. _ His _ creation was moving, kicking inside of him. It only felt like two legs and two arms... “He is moving. Could I see a scan?”

“Of course,” Hoist replied, brightly. Prowl asked for a scan at every appointment. Hoist was kind enough to humour him. He pulled out the scanner already at the ready and projected a 3D image of Prowl’s newling over his forge as he moved the scanner over Prowl’s protoform. Two legs, two arms. Large servos held ups by his face and large peds kicking.  _ His _ creation was not a monster, not like the one who had sired him, not like the ones who would steal him.

“Thank you,” Prowl said, grateful for this reminder.

“I’ll make you some copies to keep,” Hoist said. Prowl smiled and nodded. He kept copies of all his scans in his subspace where they were safe from prying optics and greedy servos.

“Thank you.” Prowl dimmed his optics and sighed as he traced his forge again. Ratchet squeezed his shoulder.

“It wasn’t consensual, was it?” He asked. Prowl shook his helm and looked up at the ceiling. In his HUD he could see Mesothulas crouched over him, caging him with his many arms, his legs held open with sticky webbing. He could hear him grunting proclamations of love and adoration as he spilt still more transfluids into his tank.

“No.”

***

Jazz glanced over to the security feed and back to the report he was writing. He was getting worried. Ratchet would not keep Prowl in the medbay for no reason. Siccing the medic on Prowl had been self-serving and petty, there was no question of that, though Jazz had been inspired to give in to the impulse by seeing Prowl flagging. Now he was questioning if he might have taken too long to act. Fragging Pit, he did not want to be responsible, even distantly, for Prowl losing his bitlet. Jazz dropped his stylus and ran his servos down his face. Of course, that was just what Blaster had asked of him; he had asked him to find evidence to support Rewind and Chromedome’s custody suit and Jazz had agreed. He had agreed to help try to steal Prowl’s bitlet from him. Technically, Jazz had not expected to find anything and had only agreed to do his friend a favour, but what if he had found something? Fragging Pit.

He turned his helm and watched the monitor as Ratchet finally reappeared from a treatment room. Prowl did not reappear. Jazz studied the medic as he walked over to a counter and started cleaning some tools. The relief Jazz felt momentarily stole his intakes. Ratchet did not go to his office to hide from prying optics. His shoulders were straight, not sagging with regret, as he worked. Something had motivated him to keep Prowl over the dark-cycle, but it was not tragic, at least not yet. Jazz powered on his workstation and looked up the rota. There it was, a strike through the orn next to Prowl’s designation. Medical leave... but just one orn. That was good, they could both catch up on their recharge. No one had suffered a sparkbreaking tragedy this dark-cycle. Jazz decided that was a good note to end the mega-cycle on. He shut down his workstation, put away his reports and headed home.

When Jazz returned to the base the next light-cycle he stopped at the mess to grab a cube of pressed energon. His own press had kicked the bucket quartexes ago and Jazz had been too busy stalking Prowl to go out and get a new one. It was not so great an urgency, anyways. Unlike Prowl, he was not picky about his fuel. He could drink any scrap, except the rocket fuel Prowl lived on. There was useful gossip to hear in the mess, anyways. What the Autobots at large did not understand was that Jazz’s job was just as much to watch them as it was the Cons. His reputation as a party mech and everybot’s friend made keeping tabs on the rank and file the easiest part of his job.

Jazz pretended like he was not paying attention as he fiddled with the press. Of course, he listened to every glyph both whispered and laughed throughout the sprawling room. Though the chatter was layered, one voice on top of the other, Jazz had no issue filtering it and identifying each individual voice. Glyph of Prowl’s leave had gotten out. Bots were speculating, absolutely wildly, about the cause. The primary idea that was quickly taking flight was the suggestion that Prowl had given emergence, that he had forged his due date to throw off Chromedome and Rewind’s case. This rumour was going to spread to every corner of the Autobot territories before the light-cycle was out. When Prowl reappeared, still gravid, the whispers would die out but no one would take back their outlandish stories. No one would apologize to Prowl or Hoist for spreading lies.

Prowl was not one of Jazz’s favourite mechanisms, but he had gotten the short end of the stick here and Jazz sympathized. Being in a custody dispute with someone who was not even the progenitor had to be maddening to someone as reasonable and logical as Prowl. Being investigated for stellar-cycles had to be frustrating for one so private and duty-bound. He might not have been one of Jazz’s favourite mechanisms, but Jazz felt for him and he did not like the part he had played these last quartexes in the Praxian’s distress. Maybe Prowl had not broken down in tears, as Rewind had, right here in the mess, that did not mean he was not stressed. Considering how surly Prowl got when he came out of a crash with an audience, he would not like an audience when he broke down in tears.

With pressed energon in servo and helm full of the latest gossip, Jazz retreated to his office. He immediately pulled the security feed for the medbay up on one screen and set to work. There was a note in his inbox; with Prowl on medical leave, reports and briefs from Spec Ops were to go to Trailbreaker. Countdown, who aspired to become Head of Tactics, would probably have a fit if he knew, but he did not have the clearance and Jazz had no interest in giving it to him. He was a decent enough commander in the field, but Countdown had studied under Thunderclash and Jazz found that school of command to be filled by glory hounds and he had no use for their ilk. His operations were too delicate to risk on fools seeking accolades. Jazz was happy enough to work with Trailbreaker as opposed to Prowl. Prowl was a nitpicking aft sometimes, though Jazz could not deny that the improvements he made to Jazz’s mission specs often made noticeable differences, and usually for the better.

Hoist appeared on the feed and disappeared into the exam room Ratchet had holed up in with Prowl. There was another mech who was sick of Chromedome and Rewind’s slag. That had been one of the quieter whispers being shared in the mess; Hoist had responded to the latest suit with one of his own. Not only was Hoist accusing them of libel, but he was also seeking monetary damages. Did anyone really believe Hoist had perjured himself? Surely not. Not  _ Hoist _ . Then they might have argued Prowl was holding something over him, forcing him to lie, except what could Hoist possibly have done for Prowl to be able to blackmail him? The longer this scrap went on, the deeper it went and the more ridiculous it got.

The rota was refreshed and Jazz saw Prowl’s medical leave be extended for a full quartex. Something had gone wrong and he hissed a curse. Ratchet would not put Prowl on leave for a quartex just for him to catch up on his recharge. There had to be a reason, a real one. Jazz tapped his stylus against his lipplates. He doubted Prowl had given emergence, the leave would be longer than a quartex just to start. It was not any of his business. Prowl would certainly be easier to monitor when he was stuck in his hab, though Jazz did not think he would get away with looking through his window while he was online. No, if Jazz peeked in the window while Prowl was relaxing on that couch he would probably get shot and Prowl would not be in the wrong there.

There was no point in surveilling him. He was not meeting with Shadowmecha. He was not sitting on bags of pilfered wealth. Jazz could watch him for a hundred vorns and the results would be the same. Prowl knew he was being investigated, even if no one had brought him in for questioning beyond that the row he had had with Optimus when he had returned to Iacon after Sentinel had died in the Wastes. Prime had to realize there was no point. With nothing to hold over Prowl in an interrogation, there was no point in an interrogation. Certainly, they could not torture him. The use of torture against Autobots was strictly restricted and Jazz was judicious with it even with Decepticons. There was a science to it. Ultimately, he knew mechanisms would say anything to make the pain stop when it got to a certain point. Even the fear of it could result in wild cyber-goose chases, due to lies inspired by terror. Those under torture would often say what the one torturing them wanting to hear, or make up some ridiculous lie. Jazz would not put it past Prowl to deliver false testimony under torture just to spite whoever had their servos on him. He would send them on wilder and wilder cyber-goose chases until they caught on. Before they could break him, he would flip his kill switch. Jazz knew he had one, just like every spec op did.

Jazz took a measured intake. If Optimus called for Prowl to be interrogated it would be on him to do it, no one else had the clearance. He was not afraid of interrogating mechanisms; he was rather adept at it, but Jazz did not enjoy interrogating Autobots suspected of treachery, mechanisms he had called colleague or friend. Never once had he brought one in without real suspicions and real grounds. If Optimus called for Prowl to be interrogated at Jazz’s peds, Jazz thought it would be the line in the sand he could not cross. That would be the moment where Optimus fell too far to be saved in his estimate. Jazz hoped to Primus that mega-cycle did not come. Hound seemed to think it could be just around the corner. Please, let him be wrong.

With this worry taking root in Jazz’s spark, he rose from his desk and set out to find the Prime. He liked Optimus. He had liked Orion. If not for Optimus/Orion, Jazz would have remained a talent for hire. Before Optimus, Jazz would never have enlisted, at least not with the Autobots. It had been an easy choice when Optimus had asked him personally to enlist and to take charge of his Spec Ops division, to undo the damage done by Sentinel’s Shadowmecha. Prowl had been the principal shadow, though Highbrow had been the division’s commander. Spec Ops had still fallen, at least in part, under the SIC’s purview. Elevating Jazz to general, a rank Highbrow had never held, there had been no need for Prowl’s continued oversight. Jazz doubted it had been an accident or a coincidence. Bit by bit, Optimus had reduced Prowl’s authority, replacing him in a number of areas with mechanisms he actually trusted. The last area left was command. Optimus could not just demote Prowl or court-martial him without cause, and that was what he needed to strip Prowl from his position as Second in Command. Jazz knew it grated on Prime. Did it grate on him enough to stoop to Sentinel’s level?

“You!” Ratchet waved a wrench at Jazz as he snapped. Jazz raised his servos and took a step back. Optimus cocked his helm to the door. Clearly, there was already a meeting in process. Jazz took another step back and slowly turned to the door. “No! You. Will. Stay.”

“Yes, sir,” Jazz said. He knew better than to turn his back on Ratchet when he had one of those in his servos.

“Ratchet...” Optimus said.

“Shut up, Prime,” Ratchet ordered and Jazz decided he was going to stick as close to the wall as he could get. Someone was in a mood. “You are calling  _ him _ off. You are calling  _ them _ off. My staff and my patient are being harassed and I’m not going to tolerate it for another nanoklik.”

“This is beyond...” Optimus said.

“No, it isn’t,” Ratchet countered. “Hoist is being accused of forging medical documents. Do you have any idea how serious a charge that is? He is going to be brought in front of the board. He’s going to have to defend his record because those two won’t accept basic math.”

“Hoist will obviously be cleared,” Optimus said. “He’s an exemplary medic.”

“I know he is. I trained him. He shouldn’t have to go before the board. He shouldn’t need to be cleared. One plus one is two, Prime, and labradorite is blue. Some scrap isn’t up to debate. It isn’t opinion. It’s science. It’s fact. Prowl is sixty-three stellar-cycles into his gestational vorn. The last time he and Chromedome interfaced was a little over eighty-three stellar-cycles ago. Never mind the fact the CNA results are indisputable, the math just doesn’t work. Chromedome is not the progenitor of that bitlet. I’ve advised Prowl to file a countersuit for harassment. This needs to stop. It should never have even started.”

“I don’t have oversight over the courts,” Optimus argued. It was true but it was also a weak defence.

“Your second in command is being harassed, on base, by subordinates,” Ratchet hissed. “Get off your aft and do your job. Prowl can’t discipline them because anything he says or does will be looked at as biased. You wouldn’t tolerate any other Autobot being treated like this. I know you wouldn’t.”

“Prowl hasn’t lodged any complaint with me,” Optimus said. Jazz winced. Ratchet shoved the wrench he was wielding under Optimus’ chin.

“No slag,” he snarled, optics flashing. “You have it out for him. Even the Decepticons know it. He would be stupid to think you would ever have his back. He isn’t stupid. He knows you’re as good as useless. He expects you to be as good as useless. I, on the other servo, hold you to a higher standard. I expect you to do your damned job.”

“Ratch,” Jazz interjected.

“You are going to cut out your scrap,” Ratchet snapped, pointing his wrench in at Jazz now. “Where does Blaster get off asking you to dig around Prowl’s life? Where do you get off playing along with this scrap?”

“He asked me to let ’m know if I learned anythin’ relevant,” Jazz replied. He glanced at Prime. “We were already watching. Prowl has been under surveillance by my department for stellar-cycles.”

“What have you found?” Ratchet asked, staring at Optimus, not Jazz.

“Nothin’,” Jazz replied.

“Nothing,” Ratchet echoed. “I am not going to stand by while you try and put that mech and that bitlet in the catacombs because of a Primus damned witch hunt.”

“That’s a bit far,” Jazz offered. Those glyphs again. They may well have been true.

“It isn’t,” Ratchet countered. “The level of stress you have all put on that gravid mech is criminal. As a result of the conduct of everyone on this base, Prowl is suffering from dangerous complications and will be on medical leave for a minimum of one quartex. If his condition worsens, we may have to extract the newling early to save Prowl’s life, and that bitlet could die. If either the originator or the newling come to grief because of your grudge, Prime, I will hold it over your helm for the rest of your Primus damned life.”

Ratchet stormed out. Prime and Ratchet were friends, old friends. This rebuke was novel. It could be a defining moment in their friendship, the moment where it ended. Jazz lingered, waiting for Optimus to speak. He guessed the accusation that he was putting Prowl’s creation at risk, less than the accusation that he was putting Prowl’s life at risk, was weighing on him. Both weighed heavily on Jazz. Taking a life, ordering a life to be taken, sending someone to their death these were parts of his job and while Jazz would not say it was easy, it was not difficult either. But those lives belonged to enemies or operatives who knew their duty. They were not a gravid mech or the bitlet he was carrying. Jazz did not want to be responsible for the loss of either.

“There’s nothin’ to find, Optimus,” Jazz said.

“Keep looking,” Optimus ordered and Jazz set his jaw and frowned.

“Optimus,” he said. “There’s nothin’ to find. Ya think of ’m as Sentinel’s like he had a choice. He was Sentinel’s, the fragger bought ‘m. Ya got the damn receipt. Two-point two million shanix. That’s what Prowl was worth. Sentinel used it as a tax write off. Chromedome offered Prowl a lil over twenty thousand for that bitlet.”

“Keep looking, Jazz,” Optimus ordered. “Prowl is hiding something. The identity of the progenitor at the very least.”

“Not really any o’ our business who he fragged,” Jazz said.

“It is if it was an enemy agent,” Optimus replied.

“Fraggin’ Pit, that’s a reach.”

“He was unaccounted for multiple mega-cycles after Sentinel fell. Keep looking.”

“One of these mega-cycles, Optimus, y’re gonna have to put this witch hunt to berth.”

  
  
  
  



	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by FairyGothMama
> 
> Many thanks.

Dissatisfied with how the meeting with Optimus had gone, Jazz retreated to his office. He did not comm Mirage and Hound to share the results. There was nothing to share. The status quo continued and it left a bitter pill in his mouth. Knowing Trailbreaker was not detailed enough to correct reports riddled with errors, Jazz was meticulous as he laid out Treadbolt’s findings for the tactical attache. For the sake of his operatives, Jazz had to try and think like Prowl, just a little, as he planned the Operation Smog, a mission intended for Mirage and Hound with both sabotage and surveillance in processor. Shockwave was working on something, according to Treadbolt. If there was anything to steal or to destroy, Mirage was their best hope to get in. Hound was their best hope to get him out if things got dicey. Since he had taken command over Spec Ops, Jazz had always been able to rely on Prowl picking apart his plans, whether he had liked it or not. Prowl could not do that for him right now, so Jazz did it himself.

Caught up in his triple check, Jazz almost missed the moment Prowl reappeared on the security feed. Ratchet and Hoist were both with him. There was no audio, so Jazz did not know what they were saying. Prowl was still very much with spark. If anything, he looked even bigger. He was bigger, Jazz realized. The settings of his armour had been adjusted. His famously large bumper was larger and his narrow hips were no longer narrow at all. As he spoke with the medics, Prowl had both servos cradling his forge. There was no outward sign of ill health in the mech, but Jazz knew these things could often lie hidden. If Ratchet said Prowl’s and the bitlet’s health were in danger, Jazz believed him.

After Prowl went on his way, with Hoist as an escort, Jazz returned to his work. He left, not early but earlier than he had since he had started tailing Prowl. It should have been nice, and it was, but not as nice as he would have anticipated. Jazz poured himself a vial of engex and stretched out on his couch, putting one of his favourite albums on to play. As he decompressed, Jazz turned over the mega-cycle’s events in his helm. The status quo continued and the orders from his commander remained, but how Jazz chose to interpret those orders was up to him. Jazz smiled as he drank his engex and a plan formed in his helm. There was no way Prime would approve of it, but since Optimus was especially servos off with Spec Ops, Jazz knew he could get away with it.

Jazz set out a couple of joors after sunrise. He knew from the quartexes of surveillance that Prowl had not grabbed any groceries for a while, nor had he had any delivered. Though Jazz did not know if Prowl’s medical leave involved berth rest, his experience watching the mech gave him the idea that Prowl was unlikely to go out for anything but an appointment with Hoist. His life was... a little sad when Jazz thought about it. Prowl lived like an MTO on contract. As in, he did not have a life. He was going to have a bitlet, one Jazz believed he had every intention of raising himself. Before he had the bitlet, Jazz hoped Prowl learned to actually live or that mechling was going to have a very repressive existence.

Not knowing what Prowl would be short of, Jazz got a little bit of everything, wandering the aisles and grabbing whatever got his optics. Jazz had had no idea how Prowl drank that fuel of his without developing synesthesia, but he had seen Prowl drink three cubes of that slag in one sitting. Rather than make him bounce off the walls or speak in Primal Vernacular, the potent brew Prowl favoured seemed to relax him. There were rows and rows of crystals intended to be pressed taking up the majority of the aisle. As he looked up and down the aisle, Jazz had no idea what to buy for Prowl and then he realized Ratchet or Hoist might have banned Prowl from the stuff after his hospitalization. These groceries were meant to be a peace offering, bringing him crystals he was forbidden to press would probably not make Prowl feel peaceful.

-“Yo, Ratch,” Jazz initiated his comm. It only took Ratchet a few nanokliks to connect.

-“What have you done?”

-“Why do ya always ask me that when I comm ya?”

-“Because you usually only comm me after you’ve scrapped yourself.”

-“That’s cold,” Jazz chuckled. “‘M at the store, buyin’ some slag. Is Prowl still allowed his rocket fuel?”

-“Why?” Ratchet asked, voice dripping with irritation.

-“Cause ya put ’m on leave ‘n I know he ain’t been shoppin’ so ‘m pickin ’m up some peace offerings. He ain’t gonna feel peaceful if I bring ’m crystals he ain’t allowed to drink.”

-“He’s allowed it,” Ratchet replied. “Do not stress out my patient.”

-“Ain’t he Hoist’s patient?” Jazz asked.

-“We’re sharing. I reiterate. Do not stress out my patient. If you do, I will hunt you down and contrary to what you think, you won’t be able to outrun me.”

-“I ain’t out to give ’m grief,” Jazz promised, he stared down the long aisle again. “I don’t suppose ya know his recipe.”

-“I do,” Ratchet replied. “Sending it your way.”

They were not the crystals he would have picked and it was a more complex mix that he would have guessed as well. Jazz picked up a jar of each variety and added it to his cart. As he did, he received another message from Ratchet in his inbox. It was a list of groceries, fuel additives and ores Ratchet wanted Jazz to pick up for Prowl. He sent Ratchet a quick thumbs up and hunted down the additives. He passed a display of plush toys and paused. Would this be a peace offering or a declaration of war? Prowl had always been isolated, more isolated after his carrying had exploded into multiple court cases. Even those who accepted reality and understood Chromedome was not the progenitor thought Prowl should just hand the bitlet over at emergence to mechs more fit to be procreators. How much of that scrap Prowl had heard, Jazz did not know but he imagined he had heard some of it. That had to hurt, even a mech as stoic as Prowl could be hurt. Looking over the assorted plushes, Jazz picked up a ridiculous yellow warwhale and put it in his cart.

By the time Jazz got to the checkout, his cart was overflowing. There was nothing quite like guilt to make him free with his credits. He shrugged as the total grew higher and higher. With any luck, Prowl would let him up. While Jazz could get past the keypad encryption to get into the building, he imagined just turning up and Prowl’s habsuite door would stress Prowl a bit and he did not want to find an angry ambulance riding his aft when he went on his way home. Optimus had no sense of self-preservation or he would not have insisted Jazz kept on this pointless hunt. With that thought in processor, Jazz packed the boxes into his subspace and drove for Prowl’s hab.

Though it was the middle of the mega-cycle, the sidewalks were busy. There were mechanisms, not only Autobots but Neutrals as well, meandering around, going about their business. Jazz looked around. It would be easy to disappear and easy to escape. How many routes had Prowl planned out? Six different transport routes, the monorail just a thirty nanoklik walk around the corner. The trendy shops operating below the residential units attracted crowds. It would be easy to escape. At first glance, the district had not looked like Prowl’s scene but taking a second look, this was the sort of place Jazz would gravitate to, in the event he needed a new hab. Though Prowl had never tried to lose his tails, he might have been hiding from someone else. Who had sired the newspark? Prowl had been kindled in the ashes of Sentinel’s reign as Prime. Was it possible that Sentinel himself had sired Prowl’s creation before he had gone out with the Omega Destructors and met his end? Could it have been one of Sentinel’s sycophants, one of the fugitives now in the wind? In the chaos that had followed the battle and the collapse of the alliance between Optimus and Megatron, might Prowl have been captured? He had refused to designate the mechanism responsible for his condition. Just what, just who was Prowl hiding?

“Hello?” Prowl’s voice rang out over the intercom.

“It’s Jazz. I got groceries for ya. Buzz me up.”

“You have what?”

“Groceries. Ratchet gave me a list. Buzz me up. The boxes are too heavy for ya to carry in yer condition.”

It was a lie of omission but as he heard the door buzz, Jazz grinned. At least it had gotten him in the door. Though he had not gotten into Prowl’s habsuite, Jazz had taken a look around his building, going so far as to search the basement. There were no hidden passages, no speakeasies or gambling dens. Prowl had purchased a habsuite in a perfectly average, perfectly boring building in a shopping corner of Downtown. Cheap enough that buying here had not attracted undue attention but not so cheap that it was too deficient in amenities, like security. Knowing Prowl’s habsuite was on the middlemost floor, Jazz took the elevator. He could run, up or down. Again, Prowl had given himself multiple routes of escape. Clever. His time in Ops showed. When Jazz knocked on his door, it opened, and Prowl was standing nearby, leaning against the arm of the couch, out of reach, again giving himself avenues of escape.

“Can I put these away for ya?” Jazz asked, looking around the stack of boxes. “Should ya be standin’?”

“I can stand,” Prowl replied. “For short periods.”

“Take a seat then,” Jazz said. “I’ll get this sorted.”

“Ratchet told you to get all that?” Prowl asked. He half obeyed. Rather than just lean, he sat on the arm of the couch. If Ratchet were here he would probably give Prowl such a look.

“He told me to get ya some ores ‘n scrap ya need to be eatin’,” Jazz explained as he set the boxes on Prowl’s counter and opened his pantry. “‘N he gave me a list o’ the crystals ya use in yer press. The rest is just normal scrap; midgrade, gels. Rust sticks.”

“Why?” It was more of a demand than a question. Faced with Prowl's stress and Ratchet’s warning, Jazz turned towards him and raised his servos.

“Peace offerin’,” he replied. “I know ya ain’t gotten to the shops, so I went for ya.”

“Why?” Prowl’s question was given with a low whine from his frame. Ratchet would kill Jazz, straight up slaughter him, if he caused Prowl to crash.

“Come on, come on,” he said, taking Prowl’s servos and guiding him gently down to the seat of the L shaped couch. Prowl watched him warily as he sat. “Put yer peds up. Relax. Ratchet made it real clear what would happen to me if I stressed ya ‘n yer bitty out.”

“A dangerous thing to admit to me,” Prowl said, slowly as Jazz released his servos and they fell onto his forge. “I could tell him you stressed me. He would not ask for evidence. He would not ask for your side of the story.”

“Y’re right,” Jazz nodded. “But ya won’t.”

“Are you sure?” Prowl asked.

“Yeah, I am,” Jazz said. “Yer better than that.”

Prowl’s optics glinted, and Jazz returned to the mech’s kitchen and sorted through the boxes as he decided where he was going to put what. Other than crystals for his press and fuel additives Hoist had prescribed early on, Prowl’s pantry was empty. It left him with no real idea where Prowl would want scrap. In the end, Jazz decided to guess. Put it away, like with like and all neat and organized; Prowl could fiddle with it when he had half a processor to. After Jazz loaded Prowl’s dispenser with the midgrade, that only left the plush. Jazz turned it over in his servos. He had never been a coward, now was not the time to start.

“For the bitlet,” Jazz said after he stepped around the couch. Prowl reached for it as one might expect of someone picking up a grenade.

“Why?” He asked, turning it over in his servos. Prowl was a cold construct. Had he ever even touched one of these?

“‘Cause I saw it, ‘n I thought o’ ya ‘n the bitty.”

“Why?” Prowl asked. “Why are you here?”

“Checkin’ up on ya,” Jazz replied, shrugging. “Ya scared me when ya fell. Figure it probably scared ya more, to be fair. How are ya doin’, Prowl?”

“I am fine,” Prowl said. He traced the warwhale’s cartoon face, looking uncharacteristically vulnerable. “At least, in part, because you caught me. Thank you.”

“Best catch I think I ever made.”

“You do not mean that.”

“Of course, I do,” Jazz said. “Gonna have memory purges o’ just missin’, bein’ just a nanoklik too slow. I wouldn’t wanna have a part in ya losin’ that bitty.”

“You are helping Blaster,” Prowl snapped. He discarded the plush on the couch and curled his servos into tight fists. The flash of temper, the pale optics blazing, was generally followed by the flip of a table. Jazz had gotten that look from this mech before. Prowl restrained himself, folding his servos over his forge as he took a deep intake. “You are helping them. You are actively trying to take him from me!”

“I shouldn’t’ve humoured ‘m,” Jazz said. “‘M sorry I did.”

“Sorry?” The glyph was spoken so softly it was not even a whisper. Jazz felt like a monster.

“Yeah, ‘m sorry, really. Lemme press energon for ya.”

“Why?”

“Cause ya look like ya got a pinch in yer processor 'n that rocket fuel seems to help,” Jazz replied.

“I can make my own energon,” Prowl said. As the flash of temper bled away, Prowl was left looking worn out. Jazz imagined him at the counter, imagined him falling.

“Are ya really supposed to stand?” Jazz asked.

“You asked that already. I can stand. For short periods.”

“But yer mostly supposed to rest, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then lemme make ya that cube.”

“Fine.”

“Good mech.”

Along with the list of crystals, Ratchet had sent him the exact recipe, along with instructions. Jazz felt like a mad scientist as he measured out the raw crystals and set them in the press. The machine almost grumbled, as if it was alive, crushing the crystals and expelling the fuel into a tall cylinder. Now it had to simmer. It required more patience than the energon Jazz drank. That seemed reason enough to stick with the easy scrap. After a bream, it was not quite as black as Jazz knew it should be and he let it simmer a little longer. After another three kliks, it was an eerie, fathomless black. Jazz poured it into a cube, grabbed the rust sticks and brought them over to Prowl.

“Ya used to keep these on yer desk,” Jazz said, holding up the rust sticks.

“I still do,” Prowl replied. He set the warwhale aside to take the fuel. “But in a drawer. There is too much on my desk. I knocked a new jar off. I was not happy.”

“I bet not,” Jazz said and he imagined Prowl cursing or crying. It would not happen again, not knowing how Prow operated. He did not make the same mistake twice.

“Thank you,” Prowl said, he cupped the cube between his servos as the jar of rust sticks rested against his thigh.

“Can I get anything else for ya?” Jazz asked. Prowl shook his helm.

“You can sit. If you want.”

“Thank ya.” Jazz said. He caught Prowl off guard by sitting on the edge of the L where Prowl was resting his peds.

“Ask me whatever you want to ask me,” Prowl said after he drank a third of the cube in a long sip. “I know there is something."

“Who are ya hidin’ from?” Jazz asked. Prowl noticeably flinched.

“I am not hiding,” he replied.

“Ya bought a hab wit a least a hundred different escape routes in a busy district. If ya step outta yer hab, ya could disappear in the crowds in nanokliks. It’s exactly what I would look for if I need a new bolt hole.”

“You believe you know me quite well.”

“I know ya oversaw Spec Ops. I know ya got trainin’ to recognize a tail. Ya never tried to lose us.”

“There was no point,” Prowl replied. “Why waste time and energy zipping around back alleys when I am just going home?”

“The principle,” Jazz said. Prowl shook his helm.

“It would only have resulted in additional tails,” Prowl said. “There was no point.”

“Ya ain’t wrong,” Jazz replied. It would have resulted in additional tails, there was no denying that. “But ‘m wonderin’, if maybe ya don’t want us watchin’ ya, just a little. ‘Cause if we’re tailin’ ya, no one else is.”

“No,” Prowl’s denial was emphatic but it rang false.

“Who are ya hidin’ from, Prowl?” Jazz asked. He did not know what overcame him, but he squeezed Prowl’s ankle in a gesture of comfort. Prowl did not answer. Jazz made an educated guess. “The progenitor?”

“Yes.”

***

The glyph fell off Prowl’s glossa before Prowl could reconsider the wisdom of truth. Feeling nauseous, Prowl set the pressed energon on the middle cushion of the sectional larger than a single mech needed. But he had not purchased the couch with only himself in processor. He had been thinking about the future. Prowl had picked it while imagining his creation crawling and walking. When he was alone in his office, sometimes Prowl studied his scans and tried to imagine what his newling would look like. Not like him, he was certain of that. His creation’s skeletal structure had been completed and there were doorwings struts. Mesothulas had already completed dozens, if not hundreds or thousands of experiments and modifications on his own frame before Prowl had ever met him. What the madmech might have looked like before those countless modifications was a mystery to Prowl. It might have been his imagination but when he looked at his bitlet’s profile, he thought he might have his olfactory ridge, maybe? Prowl wanted to take out the scans, to study them again, but he would not with Jazz watching. He looked down at his leg, where Jazz was squeezing his ankle. Why was it comforting?

“Has he or she threatened ya?” Jazz asked. Prowl grimaced. He should have lied. He should have claimed he did not know. Jazz would not drop it for anything now. The saboteur was speaking kindly, squeezing his ankle gently. Tears beaded in Prowl’s optics and he willed them away.

“No.”

It was not a lie. Mesothulas had not left Prowl a threatening note or left any other clue that hinted to his location. Prowl felt conflicted over this. He did not want Mesothulas near, the idea terrified him, but if he knew where that madmech was, he could eliminate him. Surely, Mesothulas would reappear, if only after Prowl gave emergence to his perfect life form, if not before. Before, surely, Mesothulas would want to stand over him as Prowl struggled and thrashed as he tried to evacuate a newling too big for his evacuation valve. Prowl shuddered as he imagined it was Mesothulas’ webbing encircling his ankle and not Jazz’s servo. His chassis felt tight as his spark pulsed too quickly. That latent fear flooded his systems and wiped all logic from his processor. Tears spilt from his optics as his intakes wheezed. Plating clattering, Prowl clung to Jazz’s servos when they took hold of his. The only sound in the habsuite was Prowl’s ragged ventilations. Eventually, the panic passed, and Prowl’s servos fell to his lap, limp. Jazz recovered his cube and folded Prowl’s servos around it.

“Drink up, Prowl,” Jazz ordered, speaking kindly again.

Perhaps operating on autopilot, Prowl obeyed. The potent fuel eased some of the ache in his processor. Ratchet had warned him helmaches were a symptom of chromeclampsia. Prowl couldn’t guess if the helmache he was suffering from was this new disorder or the defect he had been forged with. The pressed energon helped some but his helm still throbbed and Prowl felt suddenly, terribly unwell. His fuel tank rolled, his plating felt clammy and his thoughts were just a blur of static. Someone, Jazz, took the empty cube from his limp digits and someone, Jazz, guided Prowl back so his helm rested against the cushion. Prowl dimmed his optics. Eventually, the static faded and Prowl brought his optics back online.

“Should I be gettin’ Ratchet for ya?” Jazz asked, mouth turned down in a concerned frown.

“No,” Prowl shook his helm. “It passed. Could you bring me the prescription box on the counter?”

“Sure thing,” Jazz said.

He returned nanokliks later with the box. Slipping an arm behind Prowl’s back, Jazz helped him sit up again. Prowl opened the box and took out one of the jet injectors, a suspension of dolomite, used his digit tips to find a coolant line to his helm and injected the suspension into that line. Jazz watched him, mouth set in a line and Prowl was tired. His condition was mild, so far as chromeclampsia could be. At this point, Prowl was able to rest at home. In the advent that his condition worsened and he had to go into the medicentre, Prowl knew the likelihood of his bitlet coming early was high. They were preparing for this, even as they were trying to avoid it. He took a second jet injector, held it to a small port on the side of his forge and injected the compound of a dozen minerals into it. Though his creation was large, compared to Prowl’s own frame, he was not mature enough for emergence yet. Regular injections would speed up his newling’s production of sentio-metallico so if he did have to come early, he would be in the best shape possible. Ratchet wanted to keep Prowl gravid for at least ten more stellar-cycles; that was one hundred quartexes, so much could go wrong in that time.

“Ya ain’t fine, are ya, Prowl?” Jazz asked, frowning down at him.

“I am for now,” Prowl replied, closing the box. “I have been diagnosed with chromeclampsia.”

“Scrap,” Jazz cursed. “Gotta say ‘m not sorry I sicced Ratchet when I did.”

“Neither am I,” Prowl confessed. “Ratchet treated me with more care than I had expected he would.”

“He’s a good medic,” Jazz replied. “Why’d ya think he would treat ya different than any other Autobot?”

“He is Prime’s physician. He is their friend.”

“He’s yer friend too.”

“I do not have friends.”

Jazz sat back down next to Prowl’s peds and the Praxian pulled his legs back, resting his servos on his knees. It was the truth, Prowl did not have friends. He was not meant to have friends. Prowl had been a solo construction, not part of a cohort. When he had failed his product testing, Prowl had been unceremoniously tossed into metaforensics. Orders from command to allow him to integrate had not been rejected but neither had they been obeyed. The cohorts there had not been unkind to him, but they had not opened their ranks to him. They had not been able to. When Iacon had reached out to purchase one of Praxus’ fabled constructs, Command had jumped at the opportunity to make some profit off of their failed experiment.

Prowl had not onlined with the history and topography of Iacon in his memory banks. Before they had packed him for transport, they had uploaded this information into his processor. The sudden flood of foreign knowledge had caused Prowl to crash. His handlers had been quite relieved to see him go. They had not been his friends. They had not even been friendly. Chromedome, then Tumbler, had been friendly when he had collected Prowl from the baggage terminal; Prowl had been the baggage. Or perhaps the disinterest of his previous handlers had caused Prowl to interpret teasing and needling as friendliness.

Unlike his previous handlers, Chromedome had been very servos-on with Prowl’s upkeep. They had spent many dark-cycles alone with Chromedome re-calibrating Prowl’s processor. Sometimes it had been in a berth, often it had been on a bench, over a desk, or against a wall. Once, Chromedome had pulled him into an alley, just off a crime scene and had taken him there. Those sessions had been so frequent, the needles penetrating the base of Prowl’s helm so often, they had left a raised scar. When the precinct had sold Prowl to Sentinel Prime, those sessions had come to an end. Prowl had found in the nine or so vorns that had followed that his processor had not fallen into disrepair with their absence, despite all the times Chromedome had told him it would. He could not explain why he had shown Chromedome his back when the mnemosurgeon had come to Prowl’s office at the Autobase a vorn ago, angry and accusing him of needing recalibration. Prowl had been SIC under Sentinel, Chromedome merely one of the enlisted, he had not had any authority to make such a demand but Prowl had ended up bent over his desk anyways, Chromedome’s spike buried in his valve as his needles raked over his processor. Had he said no? Prowl could not remember saying no.

“Ya were MIA three mega-cycles after the clash,” Jazz said. His tone was gentle. It was a strange tone for an interrogation. “Sixty-three stellar-cycles ago. They get ya off the battlefield?”

“I was not there,” Prowl replied. “I was ordered to remain in Iacon, overseeing the defences.”

“Ya vanished.”

“How can I have been said to have vanished when no one looked for me?” Prowl asked. It remained a bitter pill to remember how he had been brushed off as deceased without even a cursory search. Sentinel Prime would have searched for him. He had paid too much for Prowl to just disappear. “I am aware I was reported killed in action, despite having not been stationed near said action. Might I have just been locked in my office the entire time?”

“Ya weren’t,” Jazz said. “Ya disappeared for three mega-cycles sixty-three stellar-cycles ago. When ya came back, ya were sparked up, but ya didn’t know it yet. I thought ‘bout it being Sentinel, ‘n I could see wantin’ to keep that from Optimus, all things considered. But since yer hidin’ from the progenitor, ‘m thinkin’ it can’t have been that fragger, ‘cause I watched ‘m grey.”

“Sentinel had no use for me like that,” Prowl replied.

“That a relief?”

“Yes.”

“Who caught ya, Prowl?”

“Why does it matter to you?” Prowl asked, digits digging into his knees. “For sixty-three stellar-cycles no one gave a flying frag. Nothing has changed.”

“Y’re runnin’ scared,” Jazz said.

“That sounds like a me problem,” Prowl replied, tucking his peds in as little closer to his aft. It was hard, he could not pull in as tight as he would have liked. He was going to get bigger. He wanted to get bigger. He needed to get bigger.

“It’s an us problem,” Jazz countered, “when someone’s after our SIC.”

“Oh please,” Prowl scoffed. “Optimus Prime would pay the Decepticons to keep me.”

“Fraggin’ Pit, Prowl.”

“I am not wrong.”

Prowl crossed his arms over his knees. The TIC watched him. This mech had been watching him for quartexes but it was different having him sitting so close, watching him just the same. It might have been better when Jazz had been keeping his distance, when Prowl could not be confused by his soft and sympathetic expression. Why had he decided so suddenly that these were questions he needed to have answered? No one had cared when he had gone missing. They had been sorry when he had reappeared. If he had never escaped Mesothulas, Prowl would still be tangled in that web. No Autobot would have ever come looking for him. Jazz made a soft sound, a croon, and only upon hearing it did Prowl realize he was crying. Enraged by this show of weakness, Prowl wiped his face. The tears fell anyways and Prowl hid his face.

“Optimus is,” Jazz said. Prowl froze and dropped his servos.

“What?”

“Optimus is wrong.”

“You are his friend,” Prowl accused.

“Don’t mean ‘m blind,” Jazz replied. “I ain’t blind. I don’t get to be blind. I’ve wasted a lotta mechajoors followin’ ya ‘round, me or my Bots. I could put those joors to better use. I should be. But I ain’t.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Prowl asked.

“Clearin’ the air,” Jazz said. “I’ve played a part in makin’ ya sick. ‘N I ain’t proud o’ that.”

“Should I expect to have to learn who else is following me now?” Prowl asked, flatly.

“No,” Jazz replied with a shake of his helm. “‘M still on the job.”

“That is not something you should be admitting to your target.”

“We both know ya made me. Just like ya made Raj and Hound and every other op. ‘M not gonna ask ya how ya made us, ‘cause I know y’ll just tell me some tall tale outta spite.”

“Static,” Prowl replied, smiling tiredly. “Mirage was the hardest.”

“Static,” Jazz echoed.

“In my sensory grid,” Prowl raised his doorwings. The tickle on his plating was not unpleasant. “Static has meaning. It cannot just be disregarded as city noise. I can find a pattern. The same mechanism makes the same static. It is a process of elimination.”

“Ya got better range than I realized wit those things,” Jazz said. Prowl smiled again.

“If you can see me, Jazz, I can see you and that goes for every one of your operatives. Mirage was the hardest but he cannot keep his disruptor going at all times. He has lost some of his endurance. He is consuming impure energon and it is affecting his frame function.”

“Ya caught all that.”

“Before he was yours he was mine, remember.”

“That’s right. Ya never met wit ‘m personally but ya know ‘m. Ya know us all better than we realized.”

“It is my job to know,” Prowl replied.

“Pretty sure that’s my job,” Jazz countered, lightly.

“It is also mine,” Prowl replied. “Where I place units on the field is dependent on what I believe they can handle. I can only know that by knowing them, to a point.”

“What colour are Trailbreaker’s optics?”

“Red,” Prowl replied. “His visor is tinted blue to mask them which results in some distortions in his visual feed. I have ordered him to keep a clear visor in his subspace for when he is studying topographical maps so as not to make critical errors.”

“Guess he made a couple o’ those errors before ya caught ‘m,” Jazz said.

“I do not pull orders out of my aft,” Prowl said. His legs were cramping and he stretched them out again, Jazz shuffled out of his way without complaint. “Contrary to what you think. There is a reason for everything I ask.”

“I believe ya,” Jazz said.

“You argue with me every time!” Prowl replied with sharp disbelief.

“Y’re a lil too cautious,” Jazz replied, shrugging lazily. “It just don’t work sometimes. But I know ya got reasons, even before ya go through 'em all so meticulously. I know. Just cause I don’t agree don’t mean I don’t see. I respect yer work, Prowl.”

“Thank you.”

Jazz was in his home, but he made no attempt to snoop around. He did not so much as glance as if he wanted to look. Prowl could only believe that he was sincere in his concerns. He was a caretaker by nature, which was odd for a mechanism with his function. On more than one occasion Prowl had seen him support an Autobot, either through personal losses or the shock of a horrific battle. Whether it was wise or not, his operatives were his friends. When they fell into Decepticon servos, when he got them back, Jazz personally nurtured them back to health. It was strange and nerve-wracking to have this attention turned on to him. Prowl was not Jazz’s friend. Prowl did not have friends. The aloofness of his first handlers had ultimately been superior to Chromedome’s servos on attention. Chromedome had taught Prowl that he did not want friends. Though Prowl did not think Jazz found anything particularly arousing about his bloated frame, his battle computer hummed along on this idea. He pulled his peds back up again. The way Jazz was watching him, did he have some idea what was going on in Prowl’s helm?

“What were yer plans for dinner?” Jazz asked.

“Plans?”

“What’re ya plannin’ to eat? Delivery?”

“Just midgrade and the additives they prescribed,” Prowl replied.

“We can do better than that,” Jazz declared and he stood up. Prowl stared up at him. “Relax, read a book or somethin’.”

“What are you doing?” Prowl asked as Jazz turned to the kitchen. The saboteur looked over his shoulder and smiled.

“Makin’ ya dinner, o’ course.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And so it continues.
> 
> Beta'd by FairyGothMama. Thank you for all your help!

“You... you cook?” Prowl asked.

“Sure, my ‘creators had a restaurant in the Dead End before everythin’ went to Pit,” Jazz replied. He glanced over to the pretty herbaceous crystals on the windowsill. “Ya don’t, I guess?”

“It was not in my data packets,” Prowl replied.

It would not have been. Cold constructs were built to serve and were programmed with the exact specifications of that service. All those nitty-gritty details of living were left to them to learn on their own. There was a reason so many cold constructs signed a new contract each time theirs expired. They had no idea how to live. The crystals on the windowsill were some of the hardier ones and they looked well cared for. Jazz did not think it was like Prowl to buy something for the sake of it, so what had drawn him to the crystals? Might he want to learn to cook? Maybe they were something he had seen on someone else’s windowsill? The habsuite had a hall off the living room. There were three doors. One would be washracks, for sure, one would be the berthroom Prowl used. That left the second, an office might have been the obvious guess given Prowl’s well-earned reputation as a workaholic. But he was having a bitty. He had only purchased the habsuite after... after... the crash... after he had learned he was with spark. Prowl had bought the habsuite when he learned he was going to be an ori. Jazz would bet shanix that the mystery room would be a nursery.

“I could teach ya,” he offered, taking the ingredients he needed from the pantry. “At least some simple slag.”

“You want to teach me to cook?” Prowl asked.

“Since ‘m still officially tailin’, we might as well make better use o’ my mechajoors,” Jazz replied. “I’ll bring a stool ‘round next time.”

“I am allowed to stand,” Prowl sounded like he was sighing this time and Jazz smiled. He listened as Prowl pushed himself up from the couch and watched like a cryo-condor as he walked, somehow purposefully even with that little waddle, into the kitchen. “Hoist even suggested I go for short walks.”

“Where do ya like to walk?” Jazz asked. Prowl had only the most basic kitchen kit. Two pots, one large and one small, and one medium-sized pan. At least he had this much. It was enough to make a simple noodle soup. If Prowl’s fuel tank was bothering him at all, the soup would be easier to keep down than a lot of things.

“I do not,” Prowl said. He glanced over the ingredients Jazz had set out on the counter, standing off to the side. “I do not have a place. I used to get my exercise on base, like everyone.”

“Not anymore.”

“I do not like getting gawked at."

“Fair,” Jazz replied. “There’s a nice park around the corner from my hab. We can take a walk there some time.”

“We?”

“Thirty metres apart or side by side,” Jazz said and shrugged. “I’ll be around.”

“You do not sound especially pleased,” Prowl observed.

“I don’t actually like wastin’ my time,” Jazz replied. “I got better things to do than follow ya ‘round. There’s this thing called havin’ a life. I like havin’ one.”

“And I do not,” Prowl said. Jazz cocked his helm. Had he imagined it, or had Prowl sounded just a little offended?

“In my book?” Jazz said. “No. Ya work. Sometimes ya recharge. Sometimes ya fuel. Mostly, ya work. ‘N ya know I don’t understand it ‘cause y’re workin’ under a mech tryin’ to railroad ya. What the frag are ya still doin’ here?”

“The shuttle crashed,” Prowl replied. He was leaning against his energon dispenser, servo cupping his forge with both servos. “I was not going to come back.”

“Ya organized the rescue mission from the wreckage,” Jazz remembered. “Directed triage when field medics got on the scene. A lot o’ the injured lived ‘cause o’ ya. I remember Ratchet sayin’ that.”

“It was part of my training.”

“Ya were a casualty, yet ya kept yer helm.”

“I am not in the habit of losing it.”

“So ya came back, on the last transport as I recall. Used up the rest of your vacation time movin’ into this place.”

“I saw Hoist first,” Prowl said. “When I could not leave Cybertron, I realized I had to be forthright with Chromedome. I did not want to be. I do not like him, contrary to what Rewind says. I do not want him. I could go the rest of my life never seeing him again and I would be jubilant at my death. I did not want to share my creation with him but I could not possibly hide a carrying on base. I told him I had an appointment with a medic because I was with spark. He sneered at me and I was relieved, if only briefly, that he did not want a claim. I thought I must have been thirty-five stellar-cycles along. My forge was already projecting so much. Hoist informed me I only was fifteen stellar-cycles along. It should not have been so much of a surprise.”

“Why?”

“Because for the three mega-cycles he had me he was fixating on ensparking me,” Prowl replied. Jazz watched him look down, grimacing ever so slightly, as he stroked his protoform. “Chromedome never had my spark but _ he _ did.”

“Why didn't ya see a medic?” Jazz asked. “They got baffles ‘n scrap that coulda stopped it.”

“I would have had to have admitted to being held,” Prowl said. “Subjected myself to debriefing. Optimus would have been delighted to have an excuse. No.”

“How’d ya get away?” Jazz asked.

“He got distracted,” Prowl replied. “I ran away.”

“Ya didn’t kill ’m.”

“I did not have a weapon.”

“I’ll show ya where ya can stash some,” Jazz declared. Prowl was not going to give him a designation or clear enough clues to leave him to the one but he had given him enough to look a little deeper. Several of Sentinel’s pet monsters were in the wind. One of them was Prowl’s personal memory purge. Finding the mech started with finding his designation. Now, this was a good use of his time. He waved Prowl over. “Come here, closer. Ain’t gonna bite ya. We’re gonna make soup.”

Jazz was going to get a stool for Prowl for next time. Even without the chromeclampsia diagnosis, carrying was tiring work. There was no reason not to leave him with the opportunity to rest. Prowl stepped closer, close enough for Jazz to catch him if his legs gave out. That was good. They needed to make a broth first. Some of the ore and crystals he had chosen were strictly for flavouring, others were on that list of Ratchet’s. Adding the first of the aromatic crystals to the pan, Jazz explained that frying them in hot oil first would bring out their flavour. Prowl watched and listened with the same intensity he did when Jazz delivered a report. Jazz thought Prowl might just have liked learning.

He laughed when Prowl wrinkled his olfactory ridge when Jazz explained he did not measure ingredients. This was how he had been taught to cook, a little of this, a little of that. For a mech who liked absolutes, this must have been a little bit of a living Pit for Prowl, but he just watched Jazz closer, watched the pot. Jazz thought he was taking mental measurements. If anyone could look at a pot and guess how many cups of oil or energon had been poured in, it was Prowl. 

It needed to simmer now. As the tactician’s processing systems fell back into neutral, his doorwings dipped at little and his optics dimmed. Jazz suggested they return to the couch. Prowl inclined his helm and walked out of the kitchen; as he did, Jazz followed as close as he dared until Prowl was safely sitting back on the couch.

“You are fussing,” Prowl said.

“Yeah,” Jazz chuckled. “I guess I am. Ain’t someone, at some point, fussed over ya when ya been down for the count?”

“Often,” Prowl said. He turned on the couch and dropped his helm. As he did, Jazz saw them, round raised bumps at the base of his helm. When Prowl turned back around his servo rested on the back of his neck. “I do not like being fussed over.”

“That ain’t bein’ fussed over,” Jazz countered.

“He would disagree,” Prowl said and he dropped his servo. “He called it re-calibrating. He spent many dark-cycle fussing as he re-calibrated my processor.”

Jazz cursed. The scars were pronounced. They could not have developed after only one or two mnemosurgery sessions. He thought of how much Rewind loathed Chromedome’s needles, how much he loathed his Conjunx’s function. Rewind had never gone under his needles, but Prowl had enough times to carry horrific scars. Everyone knew that Prowl had a processor defect. His emotional cortex was defective, bots compared him to a drone as a result. Prowl managed his glitch well, though. It was rare for him to take even joors off after a crash. He had never taken time off for frame maintenance. How could Chromedome have defended using his needles on the mech enough to leave scars? Especially considering mnemosurgery could not do slag for a hardware defect. Chromedome would have known that.

“Addiction’s a common problem with mnemosurgeons,” Jazz said. “He was your handler?”

“Yes.”

“So ya couldn’t tell ’m no,” Jazz guessed.

“I raised concerns about the frequency with Flatfoot,” Prowl revealed. “He told me Tumbler, as he was then known, was in charge of my maintenance. He would know better than me what I needed. Tumbler was taking classes at the New Institute, paid for by Command. He practised techniques on me.”

“When did the two o’ ya become romantic?” Jazz asked.

“We never were,” Prowl replied. “When he recalibrated me, his needles were not the only things he stuck in me.”

“Scrap, Prowl.”

“We were never lovers,” Prowl said, shifting on the couch, trying to make himself more comfortable. He settled with peds curled under him, leaning against the arm of the couch. “I am aware he has told any who would listen how he was seduced, how he was overcharged. Neither is the truth. We were in my office. He was angry regarding some of my orders and declared I needed to be re-calibrated. I dismissed him and turned back to my work. He bent me over my desk.”

“He raped you,” Jazz hissed, aghast.

“I do not remember if I said no,” Prowl replied, tiredly.

“Ya didn’t need to,” Jazz countered. “Ya didn’t say yes.”

“No one would believe  _ he _ would want to rape  _ me _ ,” Prowl said. “They would either believe I would be too desperate for a spike to ever say no, or that I am too frigid to get a mechanism’s spike hard without getting them overcharged on Nightmare Fuel first.”

“Those glyphs sound familiar,” Jazz replied. He had heard them parroted at different tables while he had gotten his pressed grade on more than one occasion. “‘M thinkin’ there’s a reason ya stopped fillin’ yer cubes in the mess.”

“I have good hearing,” Prowl said. “It is amplified by my doorwings. I cannot hear like you, perhaps, but I can hear when someone suggests I need to have the girder fragged out of my aft across the room.”

“‘M sorry,” Jazz replied.

“Why?” Prowl asked.

“‘Cause I don’t like bein’ the centre o’ that talk either,” Jazz said.

“Of course.”

It was a strange thing to bond over. Prowl was the favourite fodder for the gossips but Jazz’s designation fell off their glossae often as well. They were careful, usually, so Jazz did not hear his designation whispered as often as he heard Prowl’s, but he heard it. If the gossips were to be believed, Jazz had fragged half the Autobots on base, Prime included, as well as half of Darkmount. He had been a buymecha for the Crystal Towers, they said that was how he and Mirage met. When Jazz took an overcharged Bot to their quarters from a party, everybot assumed it was to bang bolts. Some of the Bots he had escorted had even made up stories to make themselves look slick to their squadmates. Bots talked about Spec Ops orgies and the stories got more outlandish every time. His department did not humour rumours, and neither did they forget them. His ops had long memories.

“You do not bring the Autobots in question in for discipline.”

“Only fuels the astroturkeys,” Jazz replied. “I came in outta nowhere, made general ‘n was given command. Some Bots make themselves feel better that they didn’t by assumin’ I fragged my way to the job. Easier than admitting they just ain’t all that.”

“Getaway.”

“Shouldn’t be surprised ya knew, but I am,” Jazz said. “Ya transferred ‘m to Nova Cronum.”

“He was causing conflict,” Prowl replied.

“I didn’t complain,” Jazz noted.

“You did not need to,” Prowl said. “He was being a nuisance.”

“Thank ya.”

Prowl did not turn away but he looked away, just down, away from Jazz. His cheekplates shone and Jazz could not think of a time he had seen Prowl flush. It really should not have been a surprise that Prowl had caught wind of Getaway’s slag. He took a servos-on approach to the squadrons, transferring mechanisms in and out as he saw fit. This did not make him popular with the various commanders, but the squads did run more smoothly after Prowl stuck his olfactory ridge into them. That’s probably why the commanders got annoyed. They did not like Prowl knowing better than them. Prowl, who had never set ped on a battlefield, who had always stayed back, well back, giving _ them _ directions. Frag but they hated that.

“What’s yer knife arm?” Jazz asked.

“Knife arm?” Prowl asked, looking up at him again.

“Do ya got a dominant servo?” Jazz asked.

“Not anymore,” Prowl replied. “Such fixations were corrected.”

“Sounds unpleasant,” Jazz replied. There was nothing strange about a bitlet emerging with a dominant servo, nothing at all. Why would it be unsavoury for an MTO to online with a similar string of code? “What was it?”

“Left.”

“Ya still hold yer stylus in yer left servo more often than not,” Jazz said. “Gimme yer left arm, palm up, ‘n we’ll get ya set up wit a surprise if there’s a next time.”

Prowl did as Jazz asked and stretched out his arm. He watched as Jazz manually opened his armour, exposing his protoform. Under Jazz’s digits, he felt the warm thrum of Prowl’s systems. Not a drone, but Jazz had known that already. There were a lot of prejudices against MTOs, prejudices that still remained, despite the current Prime’s policies of integration. The question, forged or constructed, still came up on intake exams, and the skills of those who answered constructed were so often dismissed and they were often ranked lower out of bootcamp compared to forged mechanisms who came in with no training and no experience. Jazz had called it out when he had been present to do so, but neither bootcamp nor intake were his purview. From what he had seen, since Ironhide had gotten tangled up in that mess, the scales were more balanced then they had been. Ironhide did not care who sired you or who carried you. He cared if you could shoot. He cared if you ran and hid when the bombs started falling. He cared who listened to orders. MTOs generally did better than their forged compatriots straight across the board.

“‘M gonna install this lil sheath in here,” Jazz said, smoothing his digit between the two broad cables of Prowl’s forearm. ‘N then give ya the transformation sequence ya need to use it.”

“Do we need to link up?” Prowl asked. He could not hear Prowl’s hesitance, but Jazz felt it under this thumb.

“No, Prowl,” he replied. “I’ll send ya the string to yer inbox.”

“Okay,” Prowl said. “I can do that.”

By Jazz’s estimate, there was not a lot of intimate contact that had not been tainted in some way for Prowl. His story was not unique among cold constructs, unfortunately. That did not mean the depth of the abuse he had suffered and continued to suffer was not nauseating once Jazz put it all together. He had been raped. Chromedome might say differently, but so far as Jazz was concerned there had been nothing consensual about their “relationship” back when they had both been enforcers, and their only interface since had come after Prowl had told him to go away. With Chromedome’s needles in his helm, Prowl would not have had control over his own frame. He would not have been able to say no. It was disgusting. Chromedome had been bonded before... he had been bonded when he had been jamming his needles into Prowl’s helm and his spike in his valve under the guise of maintenance. Had they all been opposed to his needles too? Or had he still been too new in his training to risk them? What had decided Prowl’s need for maintenance? Some actual failure or Chromedome’s panel getting too tight? Jazz was aware that mnemosurgeons were infamous for developing an addiction to their craft. He wondered if some of them did not also develop a violent kink.

“A’ight,” Jazz said. “I sent ya the code. Tell me when ya get it installed.”

“Done,” Prowl said a klik later.

“Okay, ‘m gonna close up yer platin’ ‘n we’ll see how it feels,” Jazz replied. When he nodded Prowl initiated the sequence for the first time. The armour on Prowl arm lifted just slightly at his wrist, not revealing the sheath but giving access to it. “Good. Now for the blade.”

“You have how many knives hidden under your armour?” Prowl asked, staring at the knife Jazz had pulled from his subspace.

“Enough that each time I get caught I got a new surprise for the fraggin’ Cons,” Jazz replied with a self-satisfied smile.

“How did you learn?” Prowl asked, delicately taking the narrow stiletto from Jazz and turning it over in his servos. “Your procreators had a restaurant.”

“It wasn’t the only family business,” Jazz replied. “I learned how to handle a blade at the same time as I learned to chop ore. When Straxus took over, we were watchin’. He talked a big game ‘bout bringin’ in law ‘n order, puttin’ an end to the gangs, except the enforcers in Polihex were the biggest fraggin’ gang. Restaurant got torched, we skipped out. Sold our services wherever we could find work and survived.”

“Are your family still alive?” Prowl asked. He performed the transformation sequence again and slid the knife into the sheath. It disappeared into the plating of his arm. No one, not Chromedome, and not the mech who had kept him prisoner would see it coming. Without being coached, Prowl initiated the sequence again and tilted his wrist so the knife slipped softly into his servo. He slipped it back into its sheath. Good.

“Yeah,” Jazz replied. “They’re around. We all enlisted separately. Safer for all of us.”

“Do you see them sometimes?”

“When I can,” Jazz said and he sighed. He had not seen his family since he had started Prowl’s tail. That included the mechlings. Jazz would be lucky if they remembered him when he turned back up at this rate. “Hard to make the time lately.”

“Because you are watching me,” Prowl said. “Why not pass my watch to another?”

“Because if I don’t see slag, there ain’t slag to see,” Jazz replied.

“Prime does not care what you see, Jazz,” Prowl said. “You will miss your family for a long time if you insist on waiting for him to be reasonable.”

“Ya don’t got much faith in Optimus,” Jazz said. “Ya left once already. Why didn’t ya try again? Why buy this place?”

“The war has spread to the colonies,” Prowl replied. His arm was folded over his forge as his other servo tapped against the arm of the couch. “It is only the beginning. You and I both know what Decepticons think of Neutrality. I want my creation to live, Jazz. The Autobot held city-states give him the best chance. Iacon gives him the best chance. So I will serve. Perhaps Optimus will sell me to another base when he runs out of excuses to try to push me out. I have never chosen my master. Optimus is no different than the rest.”

“How many times was yer contract sold?” Jazz asked. It was a taboo question. Cold constructs fairly bristled at these questions and they had the right.

“Six,” Prowl replied, without the slightest bristle. “Four times in Praxus. Once to Flatfoot’s enforcers and once to Sentinel Prime.”

“That seems like a lot.”

“It is. I failed my product testing. As a result the precinct that commissioned me sold me to another. As I failed to integrate into any cohort, I was sold again and again.”

“You? Failed?” Jazz gaped. “With that processor o’ yers?”

“Exactly,” Prowl said, he lightly tapped the side of his helm. “My processor. My glitch. They wanted a unit that had the processing power of a supercomputer. They succeeded, but the power demands of these systems resulted in instability. The function they intended for me was too delicate to tolerate such a fatal flaw.”

“If they could see ya know, they’d curse themselves for lettin’ ya go,” Jazz replied.

“No,” Prowl said. “They would, however, be cursing themselves for selling me so cheaply.”

***

Prowl did not know he could enjoy another mechanism’s company. That was not to say he resented the time he spent with Autobots in his department. There were some Prowl enjoyed working with; Trailbreaker stood out. In his downtime, what downtime Prowl ever took, he preferred to be alone. He had been alone in Praxus and he could not look back on the loneliness as superior to the raw ache that had followed Chromeone’s company. Jazz’s company was... tolerable. No, that was inaccurate. It was pleasant. Jazz was pleasant when he was not argumentative.

The broth, as Jazz had called it, had simmered long enough. Jazz showed him different ways to chop different ore and they grated gears into the pot. Prowl felt awkward doing it. Jazz cut the ore so quickly. If Prowl tried to do the same, he would cut off his digit tips. As Jazz coached him, Prowl took it slow. He did not lose patience with Prowl's paltry speed and recommend Prowl just install a data packet. Prowl could not describe what it was about data packets he hated so much, beyond the fact they so often made him glitch. Knowing without learning was simply unnerving to him. It was a fault, for certain, in a cold construct. They cooked thin, short noodles in the broth. When Jazz declared it ready to eat, he told Prowl to go back to the couch; he would serve it.

Funny, but Prowl did not bristle at the order. He walked back to his favourite corner of the sectional and carefully lowered himself down. This was... nice. Jazz was fussing, as Prowl had seen him fuss over other Autobots. It felt different from Chromedome’s fussing because it was different. Prowl could not detect any ulterior motive to explain Jazz’s conduct towards him, except for a desire to assuage some guilt. There was every possibility that Jazz had motives Prowl could not yet detect. The obvious would be the hope to search Prowl’s home. Though that seemed unlikely. How was Jazz to search when Prowl was sitting here watching? No matter. Prowl would accept the assistance while it was on offer. He would be on his own again soon enough.

“Biotite noodle soup,” Jazz declared as he set a bowl in Prowl’s servos. “Tell me what ya think?”

He thought? It was good. Prowl ate spoonfuls of broth and noodles and felt himself warmed from within. The only hot fuel he ever consumed was pressed energon. Standard midgrade rations were always cool. Of course, Prowl knew there were oil bars and restaurants that sold fuels far more complex than the rations he subsisted on, or even this soup. He had just never gone to one, except to make arrests, of course. Why would he go? Prowl would not have the slightest idea what to order and these businesses were loud and crowded and Prowl did not enjoy mechanisms bumping into his doorwings. He only fuelled to survive, in any case, with the exception of rust sticks. Now those Prowl liked and Prowl liked the soup. Maybe he would like other things. His battle computer hummed with the prospect of  _ other _ .

“Like it?” Jazz asked. He was smiling and Prowl realized he was too.

“I do.”

“Great!” Jazz grinned and why did Prowl keep smiling? “There’s ‘nough to last ya a couple o’ mega-cycles. Ya just need to warm it up for a bream, medium heat.”

“Thank you,” Prowl replied.

Within him, his creation shifted and Prowl stroked his forge. He felt comfortable and content, both foreign feelings of late. They fuelled in a silence that did not feel stifling but companionable. It was strange, so strange and Prowl sank into the soft cushions at his back and ate the warming soup. When he had finished it, Jazz took the empty bowl without prompting and brought it to the kitchen. Prowl was surprised a moment later when Jazz returned the bowl back to his servos, filled to the brim again. The Praxian’s optics brightened and he quietly thanked his colleague. He did want more and felt embarrassed for it. Being well familiar with his schematics, Prowl knew the fuel requirements of his frame and knew he was exceeding them. Of course, he was forging a newling and his frame fuel requirements had changed and on an intellectual level Prowl knew this but he still felt like a glutton. Guilty or not, Prowl dipped his spoon into the bowl and ate.

“Eat yer fill,” Jazz spoke without a hint of mockery, just a kindness Prowl had never heard directed at him before. “Ya can’t be rationin’ yer fuel when y’re buildin’ a bitty. Ratchet’ll have yer helm.”

“I am not,” Prowl replied. “The books said I should find my fuel consumption doubled at this stage but I am consuming three times as much fuel as my schematics would normally suggest.”

“Medics ain’t givin' ya slag for it?”

“No. Even Ratchet was happy with my fuel consumption. That was the only thing he was happy about.”

“Trust ‘m,” Jazz said. “If he thinks y’re fuellin’ right, trust ’m.”

“I suppose I must,” Prowl replied. “It does not come naturally to me.”

“I don’t blame ya,” Jazz replied. “I promise ya, he wants ya healthy. Not just yer bitty, he’s thinkin’ bout ya. He tore a strip off o’ Optimus.”

“Really?” Prowl asked. Ratchet’s friendship with the Prime had been one of the primary reasons Prowl had taken Hoist to be his primary physician.

“Yeah, Mech,” Jazz said. “Me too. He deserved it. I deserved it.”

“You did not have to come over,” Prowl said. “Leaving me alone, such as you could, would have been enough.”

“It would have been nothin’,” Jazz replied. “Worse than nothin’. It woulda been doin’ what I been doin’ for quartexes, ‘n I know that’s been stressin’ ya out. So no. I think I did need to come over so I could be clear wit ya ‘n ya could know ya got someone on yer side.”

“You risk alienating your best friend,” Prowl warned. “Is assuaging your guilty conscience really worth that?”

“Blaster is a smart mech,” Jazz said. “He can count. He’s feelin’ for his creation ‘n it’s blindin ’m a lil. He’ll face reality soon. Everyone will.”

“Even I somehow make it to term, someone will believe that I somehow just had a mysteriously long term,” Prowl said. “If I give emergence early, it will be within the upper limits of the gestational range had I been ensparked by Chromedome.”

“There’s a big difference between a preemie ‘n a full term bitty.”

“He is already nearly the size of a full term Praxian newling.”

“It ain’t just size,” Jazz said. “He ain’t takin’ after ya?”

“Not in the slightest,” Prowl replied. “Well... Maybe he has my olfactory ridge.”

“Yer not sure?”

“I study the scans and he is a mystery to me. That mech... he was heavily modified, I do not even know his original frametype.”

“Does it scare ya?” Jazz asked. Leave it to this mech to see it.

“I do not like the unknown,” Prowl replied. “He is already so big. By the time I reach the end, I will likely not be able to evacuate him naturally. Ratchet will have to cut him out. I am... I wonder if he is not watching, waiting. If he will not come back to claim me. He would want to be there. He would want to see his perfection life form emerge. If he retrieves me, I do not know if he would leave me to struggle futilely or if he would tear me apart to claim what is his.”

“Yers, Prowl,” Jazz said. “The bitty’s yers, ‘n only yers. That mech won’t get ya, or yer bitty. Not from the centre o’ Iacon. Not wit me around.”

“You think yourself to be my keeper?” Prowl asked. He did not believe the promise but it was tempting, so tempting just to trust a little. Mesothulas would not get past Jazz. Perhaps anyone else, but not Jazz.

“Ain’t I already?” Jazz asked.

“I suppose,” Prowl said. “I thought you had a life you were missing?”

“I’ll work it in,” Jazz replied.

Prowl believed him. It would be easier to work in the “life” Jazz had foregone the last several quartexes when Prowl was shut in at home. If Prowl was still feeling spiteful, he could insist on going out, for no reason other than to force Jazz to tail him. He could leave at all joors to force Jazz to remain on watch nearby. Spiteful was the last thing Prowl was feeling at this point when it came to Jazz. Rather, Prowl was feeling grateful. So few Autobots had been kind to him since the debacle with Chromedome had begun. A few of his subordinates, Hoist and then Ratchet. Jazz had every reason not to be kind and yet he had made the choice. Again, Prowl felt tears welling in his optics. His code had been wreaking havoc on his emotional subroutines. He grimaced and covered his optics with his arms.

“I’ll clean up,” Jazz said, softly, making no mention of Prowl’s fractious emotional state. Had it been Chromedome witnessing this, he would have laughed. There was no question, he would have laughed.

As he said he would, Jazz cleaned. Prowl listened as he put away the unused fuels and stored the soup for Prowl to eat later. Jazz hummed while he worked and Prowl’s optics dimmed. They barely brightened when Jazz stood over him and covered him with the blanket Prowl kept on the couch. He had seen a picture in a magazine, a warm, comfortable room with sparkling toys strewn out on a soft carpet. Prowl had fixated on the blanket draped over the couch in the ad and he had purchased the exact one for his own sectional. Did he sigh when Jazz pulled it over him? Jazz smiled, Prowl was certain of it. The image of Jazz’s smiling mouth followed Prowl down into recharge.

Sometime later, Prowl woke. The lights were dim, his habsuite empty, save for him. Prowl slowly sat up and stretched cramped doorwings. He looked around, ordered the lights to full and winced when the AI obeyed. Grunting as he did, Prowl stood. His kitchen was immaculately clean. Jazz had stayed long enough for the cleaning cycle to complete and he had put the pot and dishes away. As he looked around, Prowl scanned the ceiling and rolled his doorwings. Softly, he clucked his glossa and listened. Nothing. Tired, Prowl made his way to the small room next to the washracks. Boxes of furniture he still needed to construct lay where he had left them. Prowl clucked his glossa and rolled his doorwings and again, nothing. He made his way across the hall. There was nothing out of place and when he clucked his glossa and rolled his doorwings, Prowl saw and heard nothing.

Jazz was a consummate operative. He had made incursions into Darkmount and Kaon, left surveillance drones, cameras, and traps within restricted sectors. If Jazz had wanted to leave a bug behind, Prowl had given him the opportunity, when he had fallen into recharge, Jazz could have left a dozen bugs throughout Prowl’s habsuite. There was nothing, not a thing. Tears welled in Prowl’s optics again, the relief and gratitude were so profound he could not have hoped to put it to glyph. He staggered back to his berth and crawled under the blankets. Lying on his side, Prowl remained online for only a few kliks before recharge claimed him again.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter I have pre-written. I'm going to try and churn more out over the weekend. So I can keep this schedule up. No promises.
> 
> Thank you to AFairyGothMama for the beta.

The camera Jazz had left on the tower across from Prowl’s habsuite would tell him when the mech went out, and for the moment that would do well enough. It was late. But Fool’s Errand would still be open, serving tired and hungry dock workers when they came off shift. If he really booked it, he could catch a drink in the back and check in on the mechlings before he headed home to recharge. It was too late to spend any time with the little ones but better mega-cycles were ahead. He could only hope for the chance to steal a few extra joors later. Maybe if Jazz took Prowl for that walk he would be sufficiently worn out that he would be trusted to stick to home. Maybe.

There were dozens of routes to the restaurant and Jazz could drive any of them in his recharge. They had enlisted separately. His procreators had enlisted with the mechlings as their dependents. Jazz had enlisted alone. Ricochet had taken a different path and Jazz did not look forward to the mega-cycle his brother fell into his path in the field. This was not how Jazz wanted things to be. He missed what his family used to be, what it was supposed to be. The Decepticons would relish the chance to have something to hold over him, however. Better for them to believe that he had come from nothing and from no one. His procreators could handle themselves but the mechlings were innocent and they had already lived through a memory purge.

“My bitty,” Punch exclaimed when Jazz slipped through the back door into the kitchen. Jazz laughed. He could be old and rusting and as long as his originator lived, Jazz would be his bitty.

“Hey, Ori,” Jazz smiled as he greeted his originator with a firm hug. “How’s business?”

“Good, steady,” Punch said. “It’s been quartexes. Ya finally off that job?”

“Nah,” Jazz replied, plopping himself down on a stool. “Just shifted it ‘round a bit. ‘M gonna try to come ‘round at dinnertime tomorrow. See the mechlings.”

“They miss ya,” Punch said. “They love the videos ya send them.”

“I don’t know when this is gonna be over, Ori,” Jazz said. “It’s personal for the Prime. He ain’t ready to listen to reason.”

“I know y’ll do what ya can to open his audios,” Punch replied. “Can I get ya anythin’ to eat?”

“I’ve fuelled,” Jazz replied. “Made yer famous biotite noodle soup wit my target.”

“Going for infiltration versus surveillance now?” Punch asked.

“Bit o’ both,” Jazz replied. “What do the medics say? First, do no harm? ‘M tryin’ that for myself.”

“Be careful.”

“Don’t worry ‘bout me, Ori. ‘M more worried ‘bout who else could be watchin ’m. Not ‘m.”

“Have ya noticed anyone?” Punch asked.

“No. But I ain’t arrogant ‘nough to think that means there ain’t someone or somethin’ keepin’ tabs,” Jazz replied. “I got a job for ya if y’re interested. Think ya can track what happened to the fraggers that cleared out when OP rolled in?”

“Sure. Why?”

“One of ‘m has my mark runnin’ scared.”

His progenitors’ greetings were just as warm as his originator’s. Jazz stayed late, later than he intended, helping them clean up after the closing rush. They laughed and sang as they worked. It reminded Jazz of simpler times, although their lives had never really been simple. His geni had built weapons while his genitor and his ori had spied, stolen and killed for their patron. The only blessing Jazz could see in the smoke and death that had consumed Polihex was that Turmoil was dead in the rubble. He figured his procreators felt the same way, but Jazz knew Ricochet did not. Ricochet blamed Jazz for their patron’s death and he was not wrong. It had been Jazz who had forced the knife through his back. Killing his twin’s lover should probably haunt Jazz, but it did not. His only regret was not offing that piece of slag before Ricochet got pulled completely under his spell.

“Geni,” Red Alert raised his arms as he sat up in his berth. No matter how quietly Jazz moved, his little mech always seemed to know he was coming.

“Sweetlin’, yer s'posed to be chargin’,” Jazz softly chastised his creation.

There was no heat to the glyphs and he gave in quickly and scooped Red Alert into his arms. He hummed a lullaby as he held his sweet little darling close. Jazz sighed with pleasure. How he had missed the sweet smell of his bitlet and the feeling of his warm, wiggly frame. Well after Red Alert had fallen into recharge, Jazz held him. This life he lived had become harder in the last few mega-cycles. What he has been missing had been thrown so sharply into view when he had watched Prowl fall and had felt his fear. Jazz found himself missing all those sweet moments he was not here for all the more deeply. But he needed to keep them safe and doing his job, hamstringing the Cons wherever he could, was the best way he knew to do it. Jazz loved them with everything in him, even if it was too often at a distance.

Eventually, Jazz set Red Alert down and tucked him into his berth. Leaving a kiss on his youngest creation’s helm, Jazz left Red Alert to recharge and walked into the berthroom across the hall. As always, the Twins were together. An outsider looking in would blame it on the absence of a second berth, but the second berth was absent because the Twins would not recharge apart. They each had their own blanket, but Sunstreaker still insisted on stealing a corner of Sideswipe’s. Jazz fussed over them, quiet as he could. As much as he longed to hold them, they had school in the light-cycle and Sunstreaker was especially surly if he did not get his recharge. It grieved Jazz that he had missed their first mega-cycle at school because he was tailing Prowl. He could have gotten out of it, but Jazz had not been able to think of how without drawing questions into why. Hiding this, hiding them was torture, but it was necessary.

“I’ll try ‘n come ‘round for dinner,” Jazz said as he hugged his procreators good-bye. “Thank ya for this.”

“We’ll ne’er let them come to harm,” Rumbler, his geni, promised.

“I know,” Jazz said. “They’re safer wit ya than wit me.”

His originator looked sad at the suggestion but Jazz knew it was true. There were three sets of optics watching the mechlings, three lethal mechs ready to strike down a threat. They had enlisted as reservists, and Jazz had quietly attached them to his department without ever telling a single Bot on his team that they existed. It was nepotism at its worst and Jazz would not apologize for it. The insignia they wore gave them protections and benefits they would not have as Neutral citizens. By placing himself as their commander, Jazz could protect any of them from being deployed. If Optimus was not so servos off with Spec Ops he would realize there was something amiss; but while the Prime saw the need of Jazz’s department and their work, he did not want to see it done. He gave Jazz too many opportunities to abuse his position and Jazz was not honourable enough not to take advantage. Optimus was just lucky that protection for his kin was the only advantage he was taking.

Optimus’ fixation on Prowl being the source of all evil left him blind to defects and dysfunctions in his ranks. He hesitated to act on Prowl’s recommendations for discipline solely because the recommendations came from Prowl. The glue that was holding the Autobots together was the Primacy and a greater hatred for the Decepticons than distaste for each other. How long could that centre hold? Trailbreaker hid his red optics to save himself from scrutiny. Cold constructs lived in limbo. Their caste had been abolished but the prejudices remained. If not for Megatron’s quick descent into rabid, power-hungry madness, Jazz would be his left servo, not Prime’s.

Had Megatron actually cared about the many and not his own thirst for power, he would be a far better leader than Prime. Optimus led the Autobots because the Matrix had chosen him. It also chose Sentinel and Zeta so maybe it was not the best judge of character. Orion had been decent. Optimus could be decent but for this hatred he had for Prowl. This need to lay the blame for Sentinel’s misdeeds at Prowl’s peds had the potential to be a fatal flaw. Jazz was not sure he would be here, on Cybertron, if not for his family. Prowl had been correct. The war had spread beyond Cybertron. No colony was truly safe and Jazz had the mechlings to think of. They were all he thought of.

He made his way home in the early joors of the light-cycle. Jazz chuckled ruefully as he unlocked his door. This was as late as he had been getting home on the average Prowl spite-cycle but his dark-cycle had been considerably more pleasant. There was no meeting demanding his attendance at first light either and Jazz climbed into his berth knowing he was not going to get a full dark-cycle’s recharge, but at least he would have time for pressed energon before anyone expected him to be coherent. When he had been young, Jazz had been a lot like Sunstreaker. Over time he had grown out of his snappishness, for the most part. After a few of Prowl’s spite-cycles, Jazz had discovered he had found himself channelling his creation.

Jazz grimaced when his alarm went off. One of the benefits of being a freelancer had been picking his work joors. Of course, most of those joors had been late and had often ended with something breaking or someone dying. Overall Jazz preferred the stability and security the Autobots offered. He did not have to take an unsavoury job to keep his family fuelled. Yet, in the same vein, he had to stay on a job because his commander had his helm wedged up his own aft. There was a downside to everything. To wake himself up, Jazz took a quick shower. That was another positive to Iacon; hot running solvent. The utilities in Staniz had become unreliable not long after Jazz had settled there. Though he had not relocated to Iacon until two vorns later; after Sentinel Prime had led his Omega Destructors through the town and wiped out just about everything and everyone, having decided they were all Decepticon sympathizers. Had it not been for Orion, Jazz thought he would have sooner moved to Kaon than Iacon. It would have been a mistake. For all his early promise, Megatron had proven as cruel as the masters he had rebelled against.

Better a master he could subvert as he was inclined than one that would shoot him if he spoke the wrong designation. Jazz did like Optimus, most of the time. He cared for the Autobots, most of them. He cared for the Neutrals and the people their war was steadily creeping towards. What was it about Prowl that angered him so? If Jazz could find the answer, maybe he could knock some sense into the Prime’s thick helm. Whatever his sins, whatever Optimus thought he did or did not do, Prowl had an unmatched tactical ability. The Autobots needed him. More than that, they needed to learn to work with him or Iacon would suffer the same fate as Praxus and Carpessa. Megatron might rule his Decepticons by fear, but there was no questioning that he had his forces in order and Optimus did not.

Jazz drove to the base via a completely different route than he had the previous mega-cycle. It was a habit trained into him by his originator to never use the same route twice in an orn. He switched them up, careful to never create a pattern an enemy could sync to. There was a slight benefit to the scrap the rumour mill churned out. No one actually expected him to be a consummate professional and that included the Decepticons. Naturally, he did everything he could to keep Con audials out of Iacon but he knew double agents were an inevitability. He had several entrenched in various Decepticon strongholds. As far as the Decepticons knew, thanks to those voracious gossips, the Autobot TIC and Spec Ops commander was a slick little slut. If it meant they underestimated him and his department, then good.

Ready to learn what those gossips were feasting on this light-cycle, Jazz went straight to the mess. He only needed to walk in a few steps to hear the focus of the “conversation” this light-cycle. The lawsuit Hoist had filed in response to the latest suit asked for damages. Overall, opinion was in Hoist’s favour. Prowl might have been fair game but Hoist was a rather popular mech and an excellent medic. Jazz listened as the Autobots seated at the table several meters away wondered what those damages could be. That was a question Jazz had too but not one he was willing to ask of the medic just yet. 

As Jazz filled his cube with a deep blue energon, a large servo closed over Jazz’s aft. He did not bother to look over his shoulder to identify his groper. The mech’s field was oppressively thick and Jazz knew precisely who it was.

“If ya wanna keep that servo, yer gonna take it off my aft,” Jazz warned, without turning away from the press. Grapper did not appreciate how real the threat was but he dropped his servo and stepped out of Jazz’s way as the Polihexian went on his way. There was definitely a downside to having  _ that  _ rep.

“What the frag?” Grapper shrieked as hot energon splattered his chassis as he put his cube under the press.

As he staggered back, he slipped in a puddle of fuel and fell. Laughter rang up from the well-packed mess. It only got louder as the top-heavy mech flailed, unable to regain his peds. Jazz felt a familiar field brush against his. He gave a slight nod and walked out the door. It was not until they reached the lift that Mirage flickered into view. Jazz chuckled at Mirage's self-satisfied smile. They left the lift together and found Hound around the corner. The servus-frame made a questioning face at Mirage’s smile and Jazz clapped him on the back with a grin. Spec Ops could be trusted with secrets, both to find them and to keep them. Mirage’s electro disruptor was one of those secrets they kept close to their chassis.

“That was nicely done, Raj,” Jazz said. “Thank ya for that.”

“It was my pleasure,” Mirage replied. “They’re getting worse, overall. Aren’t they?”

“Prowl went on and on ‘bout it at the meetin’,” Jazz replied. “Discipline amongst the Autobots is so abysmal we make hungry ro-simians look temperate. That’s a direct quote.”

“I doubt anyone was happy to hear that from him,” Mirage said.

“Probably because he’s right,” Hound replied.

“‘N they know it,” Jazz said. “The brig’s full ‘cause none o’ the commanders can get a handle on their units. Not one unit’s fit ‘nough to deploy. That came from Ironhide. Not Prowl. So maybe Prime’ll listen.”

“Prowl is on medical leave,” Hound noted. “Are he and his bitty alright?”

“They’re holdin’,” Jazz replied. “He’s in a delicate way ‘n not just ‘cause he’s carryin’. Got some complications. Ratchet took a bite outta Prime. Told ‘m to call me off. He didn’t. ‘M still on it.”

“This is ridiculous,” Hound groused and Jazz nodded his agreement.

“Him ‘n me had a talk,” Jazz explained. He drank his pressed energon and thought over what Prowl had and had not said. “We might not be the only one’s watchin' ’m. ‘N we ain’t the ones he’s most afraid of.”

“The progenitor,” Mirage guessed.

“That’s right,” Jazz agreed. “He was held for three mega-cycles, then got away. That’s what he said ‘n ‘m inclined to believe ‘m. He told me no one looked for ‘m. I believe that too. He suggested when I asked what happened to ‘m that he mighta just been locked up in his office... There was a harmonic. I don’t think he meant for it. I wanna see the archival feed. It’s been over sixty stellar-cycles but ‘m hopin’ it ain’t been erased.”

“You think he might have been taken from his office?” Hound asked.

“I do,” Jazz replied. “If he was then the fragger’s face might be on camera. I wanna know who Prowl is afraid of.”

“He didn’t say the designation,” Mirage said.

“No,” Jazz replied. “He told me the fragger was tryin’ to spark ’m up. He got away ‘n didn’t see a medic, woulda had to report it ‘n he didn’t wanna be interrogated. I wanna know why. I wanna know who the fragger was ‘n why he wanted to spark up Prowl.”

“He doesn’t want you to know,” Hound said.

“Yeah, I know,” Jazz replied. “Unfortunately, I don’t think Prime’s sniffin’ round for nothin’. Prowl’s definitely hidin’ somethin’.”

***

Isolation was a natural state of being to Prowl. It was just different, being at home instead of at work. It did not feel as stifling to be stuck in his habsuite as he had thought it would be. Apart from the quartex he had spent getting settled after he had purchased the habsuite, Prowl had not spent a great deal of time in his home, but rather on base, working. He would not deny his devotion to his duties was at least in part a means of thumbing his olfactory ridge at the Prime. No one could say he was not a diligent worker. No one could find fault in his work. Could they find fault in him? Of course. There had been fault with Prowl from the moment he came online that first time in the lowest basement level of Enforcer Command. At least here he was actually alone. Prowl was not sitting in the same nondescript room with dozens of other identical enforcers, an orphan surrounded by tightly knit cohorts. The loneliness had been unbearable at times. Life was far less lonely when there was just... no one around.

Prowl made his way to the nursery. He had chosen this habsuite for this room alone. Large windows overlooking the sprawling city were the vogue in Iacon’s construction. Finding a habsuite with even one room without windows had been an ordeal. When Prowl had found this habsuite he had gladly paid the price. The shanix he had saved for the majority of his existence had been swallowed up by the purchase but Prowl thought every credit had been well spent. It had not come close to the two-point two million Sentinel had paid and he would pay the mortgage from the wages he earned for vorns to come. One thing Optimus Prime had done that Prowl could not complain about was remove the pay scale that differentiated contracted cold constructs from their forged compatriots. All Autobots were paid the same based on their rank. Prowl now earned a generous pay as SIC under Optimus and he wondered if the Prime knew how much Prowl, the mech he most loathed in the universe, had benefited from this amendment. He had no intention of bringing it up.

The furniture was still in boxes. Cupping his bulging protoform, Prowl lowered himself to the ground. There was a barcode on the box holding what would be the bitlet’s crib. Prowl knew it led to a site to download the data packet required to set it up. He did not like data packets and had procrastinated setting the crib up for stellar-cycles as a result. It was a task that needed to be done, however, especially with the real risk of the bitlet coming early. That did not mean the prospect of downloading the data packet was any less unappealing. There were no step by step instructions available, unfortunately, thus no way to avoid the data packet. If Prowl were handier he might try his luck, but this was his bitlet’s berth. He would never be able to forgive himself if he did some step wrong and his creation was hurt. Prowl scanned the barcode and downloaded the data packet. Like taking off a pain patch, Prowl installed it without pause.

As soon as the “knowledge” hit his battle computer, Prowl was on his elbows and knees, retching violently. He did not crash, not this time. That only made the experience slightly less unpleasant. Even after Prowl stopped retching, he did not lift his helm from the carpet for a bream. Data packets were the way of cold constructs but his systems had always recoiled at the influx of knowledge without learning. It was another way he was a failed construct. No amount of exposure to them had ever lessened his violent reactions to the packets, and his exposure to large packets continued to result in painful crashes. It may have been stubbornness but Prowl felt no great need to subject himself to data packets, certainly not large ones, with any regularity. Much was lost knowing without learning. There was a subtext to written reports and data that was too easily missed. What speed might have been lost by insisting on reading the briefs and reports was minuscule. Prowl learned quickly.

Though Prowl had retched, he had not purged. It was something he rarely did. There was a lock on his fuel tank that blocked the regurgitation of fuel except under extreme circumstances. Cold constructs were not permitted the luxury of wasting fuel. As he sat up, Prowl rubbed his forge. His creation seemed to be doing barrel rolls which did not help Prowl’s nausea. He was so lively and, despite Prowl’s failings, healthy. Prowl would do anything, absolutely anything, to ensure he remained that way. If the choice was to save the bitlet or save Prowl, Prowl had made his opinions to both the medics known. He did not want to live at the expense of his creation. 

He placed both servos against the swell of his protoform and offlined his optics. Prowl focused on his creation, on feeling his every movement. Though he had not asked for this and had not wanted it at the time he had been kindled, Prowl loved his newling with every component in his frame. There was nothing he would not sacrifice for him, no cost too great to pay for his sake. Remaining in Iacon, limiting his movements, these were sacrifices so minuscule that Prowl did not hesitate to make them if it meant limiting Mesothulas’ opportunities to get hold of him, both of them. Jazz had not been wrong, not really.

Though he bristled at being surveilled for seemingly endless stellar-cycles, if Jazz was monitoring him, no one else would be. If Mesothulas appeared in Iacon while Jazz was on Prowl’s tail, he would be quickly caught. Prowl scowled and then shuddered. If Mesothulas fell into Jazz’s servos, there would be no question, he would be interrogated. Jazz would learn everything Prowl was so desperate to hide. It was wearying to live in equal terror of the mech and of him getting caught. With any luck, Prowl was living in fear of a ghost. A mech like Mesothulas made more enemies than friends; it would be easy to imagine he could have offended the wrong/right mechanism. As much as Prowl hoped this to be the case, he doubted it to be the reality. He had never been that lucky.

His newling stretched and settled. Prowl smiled fondly down at his forge. Mesothulas would never know him, that was a promise Prowl would give his life to keep. Preferring to think of just about anything but Mesothulas, Prowl pulled up the data packet that had nearly caused him to purge his fuel tank, despite the lock on it. He opened the box and examined each piece, knowing what to do with each one though he had never seen them before. Again, Prowl felt queasy. Knowing without learning felt wrong. The mercurial nature of his tactical systems meant each time he revealed a piece of the containment berth’s construction and knew what was to be done with it, his battle computer asked why.

_ Why? _

Prowl could not answer and it made him queasy. There was nothing to be done for it but to get through the construction as quickly as possible. The sooner he could file the data packet away, the better. Multiple times in the process, Prowl got caught on the question of why. Why do this now? Why this way? With no way to investigate these questions, Prowl forced them down and continued. They made the process of setting up the berth a mentally taxing process. But when Prowl sat back and saw the pale silver berth sitting against the wall, he felt accomplished and sentimental. Standing up was difficult. Ruefully, Prowl braced himself against the box holding what would be the chest of drawers. One of these mega-cycles, he might not be able to get up again without assistance.

The chair would be next. It would be safer if Prowl did this work sitting off the ground but that would be a chore for later. His back ached. Venting a puff of air, Prowl stroked his forge as he braced his other servo against his back. He waddled, there was no question he waddled more than he walked. Alone in his habsuite, Prowl was not embarrassed by it. Really, he was only embarrassed on base because he knew Autobots were mocking him for it. Prowl did not like being a source of ridicule. Perhaps the only thing he really missed about Sentinel was the fact that Prowl’s authority as a disciplinarian had not been questioned. No one would have dared mock him in his hearing. Not for fear of Prowl, of course, but of Sentinel. Questioning authority had been absolutely intolerable. Perhaps Prowl did not miss this too much. He certainly did not show Optimus Prime the respect he had to Sentinel. Prowl feared the novice Prime; he held Prowl’s life in his servo after all, and Optimus Prime’s ceaseless investigations were annoying. But Sentinel would not have wasted time trying to court-martial Prowl. Sentinel would have snuffed Prowl out before he could even beg for mercy.

No, Prowl did not really miss Sentinel. He loathed the unknown and that was precisely what Optimus Prime was. Prowl did not understand this Prime and could not predict what he would do in the next mega-cycle, let alone the next vorn. Those strategies Prowl gave him, carefully crafted with the enemy in processor, from the data Jazz’s Spec Ops had suffered and had often died to retrieve, were forgotten when Optimus Prime saw his old friend on the field. Was it anger that drove Optimus? Was it love? At times Prowl was not sure if Optimus wanted to kill Megatron or to embrace him. Maybe Optimus did not even know. Sentinel had been predictable, predictably cruel, predictably arrogant. The only thing predictable about Optimus on any given mega-cycle was that he singularly loathed Prowl. The mech he had been before the Matrix had chosen him did not give Prowl any insights. Orion had been an unknown to him as well.

With a sigh, Prowl lowered himself to his sectional. An alarm went off in his helm and Prowl gave himself the injections Ratchet had prescribed, and then relaxed back into the cushions. He would be impressed if the foam maintained its shape by the vorn’s end, rather than moulding to his ever-increasing mass. It would be an interesting souvenir of his carrying. Hoist had warned him that his frame might not return to its original schematics. Prowl ran a servo over his newly widened hips and thighs. His lower body had increased in mass quite dramatically in the last quartexes. The cables in his legs had grown in strength and size. All the better to carry the great weight of his upper body, of course. This might have been a useful development when he had been an enforcer. Prowl had long had no need to go on high-speed chases but perhaps in the future, he would have cause to run.

He was supposed to be relaxing and Prowl willed thoughts of Optimus and all the what-ifs that surrounded him aside and picked up the carrying book he had been reading. Prowl liked the tone of this book. It was warm and light, written by a mech who had carried more than once. Rather than coming across as a manual, it came across as the counsel of a mentor. Manuals should have appealed to him more, and in theory they did because he had bought so many of them, but in practice, Prowl preferred reading the light-sparked counsel. As he read, Prowl was inspired. The manuals had told him what he needed to have for his newling: a containment berth, a chest of drawers, a rocking chair, linens for the berth, a tub and gentle solvents. It was a list of basic, needful things. But there were other things, Prowl stroked his forge as he read.

A mobile to hang above the containment berth, shelves for knickknacks, reinforced datapads filled with stories, toys. The bitlet would not play for some time past emergence but he would interact with them earlier than Prowl would have thought. He would like the soft texture of the warwhale Jazz had bought. Prowl reached for the warwhale and held it to his forge. The nursery’s walls were empty, like every other wall in his habsuite, but they did not need to stay that way. Prowl had bought plain white linens for the containment berth. It had been a practical choice, they would be easy to sterilize and clean. But as Prowl read on, the author spoke of themes and decor, and he could not explain why he  _ wanted _ that.

“The warwhale is colourful,” Prowl said, holding it to his forge as he spoke to his newling. “I wonder if Jazz chose the tackiest in creation. It is yellow with red and orange spots. I do not believe warwhales come in those colours. Would you prefer a bright nursery? Or something snug and quiet? What would you like better?”

Prowl set the book’s datapad aside and pulled out his tablet. He brought up the datanet site for the company he had purchased the nursery’s furniture and scrolled through pages and pages of _ things _ . There was so much colour, so many patterns Prowl’s processor almost spun with the data. Though Prowl was no stranger to making decisions, he made them based on data, not sentiment. How was Prowl supposed to choose what  _ things _ his bitlet would like best when he did not know what he liked best? Scrolling through page after page did not give Prowl an answer, all it did was bog down his ATS. Oddly, Prowl found himself less irritated by this and more bemused. There was something to be said for seeing the scene, he remembered that from metaforensics; he would just have to go to the shop himself.

Not this mega-cycle. Tomorrow. Prowl looked out the window and saw the soft glow of sunset. There was no need for Prowl to fear the dark. His doorwing sensors did not rely on light to give him a visual of his surroundings and the streets of Iacon were well lit. Operating with his sensory grid at full power was a drain, however, and Prowl still felt lingering fatigue. Best to listen to his frame, as Hoist had said, and rest. Prowl set the tablet down and wandered into his kitchen. He took the soup from his cooler and found a note stuck to the lid of the pot. One bream, medium heat; Prowl figured he could do that much. Though he set the timer for a bream, Prowl hovered by the stove, watching the pot like a cryo-condor. It bubbled, first a few bubbles and then more. The timer went off and Prowl shut off the burner before he removed the pot from heat. Carefully, Prowl scooped the warmed soup into a bowl and made his way back to his perch on the sectional. As the scent of the spices reached his olfactory ridge, Prowl smiled, took up his spoon and ate.


End file.
